The Gossamer
by emmalied
Summary: Pure coincidence has brought them together again. If she had known that this was going to happen, she would have never even touched that bird, let alone bring it into her house. But what's done is done, and this situation isn't going to solve itself.
1. This Affinity With Clocks

The alarm went off, and she opened her eyes. 6:20 AM.

It had been ten years. Ten.

Sarah Williams had not graduated from a school of the arts. She hadn't even pursued a career in acting. She went to some quiet community college, its name so unimportant and unknown that she had to actually rack her brains to remember it, even though she attended for four years. She had graduated with a Bachelor's degree in business, which she had no idea what to do with. But it had still felt good to toss off her graduation cap with her diploma in hand.

She worked two jobs; her day job was a shopkeeper at popular pet store, who's owner was old and generous and paid her much more than he should even though she protested. Her second evening job was a bartender at a small, quiet pub. The only people who ever went in there were older men and women who never bothered her except to tell her of their woes as they drowned themselves in their whiskey, and she never minded listening. Occasionally, some swaggering hot shot would strut in and drink too much and lean in so close to her that the alcohol on his breath made her gag, but the older men liked her and protected her, and would take care of any potential problems before anything could get out of hand.

And she was happy. One might think that a person would feel unfulfilled working menial jobs in small-town places, but Sarah didn't mind it too much. She enjoyed playing with the animals and entertaining the small children who came to the pet store, and she never minded lending a sympathetic ear to her bar customer's tales, occasionally even giving them a word of advice or two. If she didn't listen to them, no one would.

But even though she wasn't exactly unhappy, sometimes when she watched t.v. shows or read fantasy novels where the main character gets into all sorts of adventures, she felt a longing stir within her. She had had an adventure once, through a mythical land of changing stones with three strange friends at her side. That day felt so far away now.

* * *

Sarah Williams stepped into the shower and turned on the water. She hissed when it hit her skin; she always managed to turn it on too hot, and had to toggle with the HOT and COLD knobs before getting it just right.

She supposed her tolerance had come from her thirteen hour stint in the labyrinth.

The water ran into her face and clouded her eyes as she rinsed out her hair. Reaching down, she shut off the water and drew back the curtain, blinking rapidly to clear her sight. She glanced at the tiny clock that hung in her bathroom. 6:32 AM.

* * *

It was strange how easy the thought came to her now. She had never really been afraid or emotionally scarred after that night, but thinking about the Underground didn't come easy at first. It had just been too…bizarre. In fact, if she didn't have the occasional chats with Hoggle and Sir Didymus (Ludo usually just grunted and smiled toothily), she would have been sure that it had all been just a crazy dream, induced by her irritation that she was stuck babysitting.

After the run, life had gained a new perspective for her. Though she remained quiet and a bit introverted, she left her world of pretend. Her dresses and plays held no more for her than that crystal sphere that the Goblin King had stuck her in to waste her time. A waste of time…that's all they were. She had swept them away, out of sight and out of mind, to gather dust in Karen's attic. What her stepmother did with them after she left for college, Sarah didn't know, nor did she care.

Looking after Toby on the frequent nights when her parents went out was still a pain, though Sarah took it in stride, and no matter how much Toby cried, she kept her mouth firmly shut, except for when she would shush him or babble meaningless things about crystals and brave dog warriors and masquerades. Fairy tales, when told often enough, lost their meaning and became just a jumble a words. The more she spoke about that night as she carried him through the house, rocking him, the less she cared about it. The less she was intimidated by villains who looked like rock stars, by the shadows in the corners, and by the birds who flocked by her windows at night. It wasn't long until the only thing left in her mind about the labyrinth were her conversations with her three friends in the mirror.

* * *

She ran her fingers through her dark, now-dry hair, walking out of the bathroom and snatching the clothes off her bed. Her cat, Kobold, cracked open a wary eye before closing it again and turning his back to her. With a smile, Sarah stroked his fur and pulled on her jeans, followed by a simple black t-shirt. It was spring; such liberties could be taken with short sleeves. Even so, she threw on a plain gray sweatshirt, just in case. She strolled out into the kitchen and looked at the wall clock. 6:45 AM. Damn, her hair always took forever to dry. She threw a piece of bread in the toaster and leaned against the counter, watching the morning sky get brighter and brighter.

* * *

It wasn't as if she had forgotten Jareth. How could someone forget a man-who-wasn't-quite-a-man who stole her brother and made her sprint through some damn maze to get him back? No, she had just managed to push him to the back of her mind. But he frequently floated through her head, with all his taunting smiles and flashy crystals. Every time she cleaned out the bird cages at the pet store, the stray feathers that stuck to her brush would remind her of barn owls with mismatched eyes. But life had been so quiet these past years, it was easy for Sarah to accept that he had forgotten her.

**.theblueuniverse-**

As she pulled into the parking lot at the pet store, the digital clock in her car read 7:03 AM. She was late again. Damn toast. It had burned anyways, and wasn't even worth it. She grabbed her bag out of the back seat and swung open her door. Luckily for her, no one looked at pets this early in the morning, so she never really got into trouble for being a few minutes late.

She fumbled with her key ring for a moment before finding the silver one labeled "THE WILD EMPORIUM", and slid it into the lock. The door opened easily and noiselessly, and she stepped in, flipping on the lights as she went.

The early morning is probably the only quiet time in the pet store. All the dogs asleep behind their glass displays, curled on top of each other. The front window display was empty; she would have to move a couple dogs up there before people started coming by. All the rabbits and mice and gerbils were in storage in the back of the store, so she would have to move them up as well.

The moment they sensed her moving about, the puppies roused themselves and waddled up to her when she touched the glass, their tiny tongues lapping at the surface that separated her fingers from their fur. They whimpered and cried and squirmed and clambered on top of each other. Sarah just laughed and tapped the glass a few times before walking past to bring the other animals to the front.

By the time that job was finished, it was almost eight o'clock. It would still be a few hours more before the real rush started coming in, so Sarah lifted herself up onto the counter, crossed her legs, and pulled a book out of her bag to read while she waited. The pups played, the kittens mewed, and the rats squeaked. Every once in a while, she would glance nervously at the snakes, the only animals in the store that really intimidated her. A ball python flicked its tongue out at her, and she stuck hers out back.

The little bell that chimed every time someone walked in rang, and Sarah glanced up, surprised. It was still early.

A young man about her age with tawny hair and green eyes walked in, carrying a large box in front of him. She eyed him warily. He seemed like a normal boy, with a simple college sweatshirt and baggy jeans with sneakers, and there was an innocent expression on his face. He walked with a jaunty sort of step as he came inside, not at all like a swagger or a strut. She relaxed a hair; it seemed there was nothing to worry about.

"Excuse me, are you open?" The pitch of his voice was…off, somehow. Too high for someone his age. Something about it made the hair on the back of Sarah's neck stand up, and she was immediately tense again.

_You got in here, didn't you? _She wanted to spit snidely, but she forced herself to be polite. "Yes, the shop is open." He smiled, revealing rather sharp teeth. Sarah's eyes narrowed and she wished that she had been cruel, wished she had been mean and driven him off. Something wasn't right here.

He offered her the box. "Can you take this?"

She eyed it with some trepidation. "What exactly…is it?"

His smile faded and he looked appropriately somber. "An owl, I think. Found it on the street. Wasn't moving much."

_An owl? _Sarah's stomach dropped. "May I see?"

That creepy leer again. "Yeah, here." He opened the top flap, which had been loosely folded. At her questioning expression, he cast his eyes down. "I didn't want people giving me looks on the street for carrying a sick bird around. But the box has holes in the side!" he defended himself as the flap came undone. Sarah nodded, took a deep breath, and peered in, steeling herself for whatever was inside.

A snowy owl. A snowy owl, not a barn owl. Her breath, which she had been holding, came out in a whoosh. She looked closer. The pure white bird didn't seem hurt; she was sure she would notice any blood and the pristine feathers, and nothing seemed to be bent out of shape or twisted in awkward positions. At first she wondered if it was dead, but then she saw the light rise and fall of its chest. Hmm. What could be wrong with it?

There was a sudden fluttering of wings that caused them both to look up. The birds in their cages had all pressed themselves as close as they could to the box, cramming close together and staring without a single sound. In fact the entire shop had gone quiet; the normally rowdy pups were silent now, their games abandoned in favor of this new animal in their midst. The rabbits' noses were twitching like mad, the mice and rats were still. In fact, the only animal that wasn't watching the owl was the ball python in his cage. Instead, he was glaring at the tawny-haired man, weaving his head in odd patterns, tongue flickering with a soft hiss. The powerful muscles under the scales contorted, like it was preparing to strike.

The guy cleared his throat, and the sound made Sarah jump. "So, will you take it?" She watched him carefully; his face looked shiny, and his eyes kept flickering back and forth from her face to the snake in the cage behind her. What in the world? She decided not to dwell on it…not now at the moment, anyways.

Sarah sighed. It had probably been a mistake to even touch the box. "I'm not a veterinarian, I'm a shop keeper. I wish I could help, but-"

"Oh, please!" That reedy voice was beginning to grate on her nerves, but his large green eyes, set against the round, boyish face, were wide and watery, and Sarah felt her resolve falter a bit. "I would take him, but I haven't got much money!"

_And what do I look like? A millionaire? _Sarah put her hands on her hips, fully prepared to put her foot down, but the man thrust the box into her hands, and it was all Sarah could do to keep from dropping it. Before she could look up, the door bell had already rang, and the hood of his university sweatshirt was disappearing around the corner. She looked down at the comatose bird in her hands, and then at the animal-themed clock hanging on the wall. 9:35 AM. She had half-an-hour to figure out what to do with this things before all the families started pouring in.

_Well, damn it all to hell_, she thought irritably, carrying the box into the back.

There were a few extra cages lying scattered about, and she sorted through them, looking for one big enough to accommodate an owl. The largest one she found wasn't nearly big enough, but it would have to do. Before placing the owl in there, she took off her sweatshirt and laid it on the bottom of the cage. As much as she loved it, she herself would hate sleeping on an iron floor.

She looked into the box once again to take the bird out. Before she touched it, she took a minute to marvel at its beauty. She had heard that sometimes snowy owls were spotted, or blemished with black, and that it was rare to just come across one without such markings. This owl was pure white, with not even the slightest tinge of gray or black. Not even around the face, where one would expect some kind of faded…bloodstains to build up. It was immaculate.

She pulled on gloves and reached down into the box. Her hands touched the feathers, and even through her gloves, they felt cold. But it was still breathing…how could it still be alive? And what was wrong with it, anyways? She placed it in the cage carefully before shutting the door and locking it. Suddenly, the front bell rang again, and she glanced down at her watch. 10:07 AM. She sighed and gave the owl a gentle poke.

"Hang in there, beautiful," she said softly. "I don't know exactly what I can do to help you, but at least I can take you to a vet later today. Just don't die on me."

Of course, she got no response. With a sigh, she left the back room.

If she ever saw that guy again, she would throttle him.

She had meant to check up on the owl as frequently as she could, but that day, being a Saturday, was one of the busier days of the week, and she could hardly catch a minute to go to the bathroom, let alone make a dash to the back. So when Isaac finally came in to relieve her and take his shift, she gave him a grateful hug. He laughed and hugged her back, patting her hair. To anyone else, their actions could have seemed flirtatious, but Isaac had a girlfriend, and was too similar to Sarah for her to ever get along with him in a relationship. He was simply a close friend.

"Good luck with this crowd," Sarah muttered. To shadow her words, one of the younger kids started trying to stick his hand in the ball python's cage. The snake watched with beady eyes, flicking his tongue.

"I'm sure I'll manage somehow," Isaac laughed, and quickly went over to reprimand the boy and bring him to his mother.

Sarah weaved in through the families, pausing only to apologize for stepping on someone's foot, and ducked into the backroom. To her disappointment, the snowy owl was still lying motionless on her sweatshirt. She prodded at it gently, and it shifted slightly before falling still again.

"Oh, very well then," she muttered to no one in particular. In all honesty, if the thing had been awake and moving around, she probably would have just released it outside the shop…it wasn't as if she didn't want to help, but she didn't have heaps of money at her disposal to get it treated when there didn't seem to be anything wrong in the first place. But now she couldn't just leave it.

_Of course, just because I can't see anything wrong doesn't mean that there isn't, _Sarah reasoned with herself as she struggled with the cage, which was half her size. Kicking the back door open with her foot (she felt as if dragging a half-dead owl through the shop wouldn't be the best of ideas), she managed to get to her car without much incident. She reached into her bag to pull out her car keys and unlocked the door.

With the cage successfully crammed into the back seat of her car, Sarah swung herself into the driver's seat and turned the key in the ignition. As the car started, the digital clock in the dashboard automatically lit up. 4:55 PM.

It had been a long day. Thank God she had tonight off.

**.theblueuniverse-**

Kobold was apprehensive at first when he came face-to-face with a bird of prey twice his size, but after he got over that initial wariness, he watched the owl with the same reverence as the other animals in the pet shop with wide, unblinking orange eyes. It was quiet unnerving, to be honest. Kobold hardly ever even paid attention to his mistress, the only time being whenever she opened a can of cat food for him. And even that didn't work tonight; she had dumped his stinky dinner in his bowl and had set it on the floor for him, but it had remained untouched. The black cat still perched on the sofa, and could have passed for a statue if it hadn't been for the occasional twitching of his tail.

Sarah leaned on the doorway to the living room, staring at the cage on the floor. She hadn't had the heart to take her sweatshirt back, so it still was serving as a temporary bed to the sick bird. If she could even call it sick.

She had searched on various search engines on the internet in hopes of finding something to do about sickness in birds, but had come up blank every time. The searches that had anything to do with "snowy owl", "cold to the touch", and "unresponsive" had produced no results. Well, unresponsive was kind of a stretch. Every now in then, the owl would give a slight twitch, and whenever that happened, Kobold would give a start and half-rise from his sitting position before settling down again.

With a sigh, Sarah cast a glance at the kitchen clock. 9:31 PM. She didn't have to go in to the pet store tomorrow, but she was working late at the bar (some important football game would be on tomorrow night, which would draw everyone to the bars until late into the night), so she should probably go to bed early.

She filled up a plastic bowl with water and set it inside the cage before she went to bed. She felt bad that she didn't have any food to offer, though she didn't even know what owls ate anyways, so water would have to suffice for tonight. If the owl even woke up to drink any, that is. Did owls even drink? She knew smaller birds would drink out of the little water feeders in the store, but parakeets and song birds weren't exactly the same as huge birds of prey.

"Are you coming to bed, Kobold?" Sarah asked, reaching out to stroke the dark fur. The tomcat let out a strangled sound that may have been a purr, but made no move to get up and follow her into the next room. With a sigh, Sarah continued into her room. Kobold never refused an opportunity to sleep in her bed; more often than not, he would sit himself down on one of her pillows and dig his claws in and refuse to be budged.

It was all very strange indeed.

**.theblueuniverse-**

Sarah didn't wake up to the usual shrill beeping of her alarm clock. No, the thing that woke her that night was completely different, though after the events of that day, not entirely unexpected.

There was a tapping at her window.

With some effort, the dark-haired woman managed to open a heavy eyelid, bringing her hand up to rub the sleep away from her face. Tap tap tap. It was coming from the tiny window in her living room. She briefly wondered if the owl had somehow gotten out of its cage and wanted out, before glancing at her clock.

13:00 AM.

She sat upright and took it in her hands. For minute, she ignored the insistent tapping and stared at the clock, wondering if this was just a simple malfunction, though the reasonable part of her brain, the part that still dwelled on the Labyrinth (funny how she put "reasonable" and "Labyrinth" in the same sentence) told her otherwise.

13:01 AM.

_Huh. Would have never imagined he could do it with digital clocks._

For there was only one person who could possibly be responsible for this one. And it only took him ten years to come back and screw around with her. She stepped out of bed and automatically began to look for her sweatshirt before she remembered she had given it to the owl to use. Instead, she just threw on a robe. Sarah didn't quite want to go sauntering out in a tank top and short-shorts, lest she give people…the wrong idea.

Before opening her bedroom door, she paused. It had been ten years. She had been so certain that he had forgotten her, so sure that there were other things more important than she that would draw his attention away. But it seemed that the appearance of the mysterious stranger with the dying owl had set some kind of proverbial ball rolling, something that was snowballing down a hill set on a crash course with her life.

She reached for the doorknob, but acted too late. There was the sound of shattering glass from the other room, followed by a brief silence. She waited with baited breath before she heard it; heavy footsteps on her carpeted floor in the place of fluttering wings. They strode purposefully across the room and paused. Then came the creak of a cage door being swung open, and Sarah blinked.

_The bird?_

Sarah opened the door and peered out. The positioning of her small apartment gave her a perfect view of the Goblin King's back as he knelt down before the cage and reached in to remove the bird with a great, almost tender, care. Sarah's eyes, of their own accord, flickered over to where Kobold was; in general, he wasn't a very friendly cat at all, but around strangers, he became downright vicious. That was not the case tonight, just like everything else. Instead, the black cat rose and stretched, walking over to where the King was kneeling to rub his head against his knee.

In spite of herself, Sarah snorted. _That damn cat hardly ever even shows any affection to me, but a Goblin King swoops in and suddenly they're the closest of best mates?_

Jareth whirled about on his heel at her soft noise, the snowy owl cradled protectively in his gloved hands. Sarah froze. Though she had been half-expecting him to show up after every other weird thing that had happened today in her normally uneventful life, that didn't make coming face to face with him any less shocking.

And judging by the look on his face, she wasn't the only one who was surprised.

* * *

**Hmm, rather chunky and choppy and strange, wouldn't you agree? I was reading the twentieth story about Sarah finding Jareth as a barn owl on the street somewhere (not that there's anything wrong with that...I mean, my other Labyrinth story starts off with and Owl!Jareth stalking Sarah in the trees) and just wondered if there was any story where Sarah finds an owl that ISN'T Jareth...give me a few hours lazing around on spring break and I'm bound to make a story out of a plot bunny XD**

**This chapter is incredibly...rough, though somehow I am rather pleased with how it came out. It was a weird way of interpreting Sarah for me, out of college and not pursuing her dreams, but I wanted to foray into a new avenue of fanfiction instead of just playing it safe. Brownie points for anyone who knows what "Kobold" means WITHOUT googling it, you cheaters -wink-  
**

**For those of you who read "I Was Only Dreaming"...I had written out an entire plot outline for it and was following it to a fault, but as I was reading it through after publishing the last chapter, I discovered several plot holes and became frustrated. Bleh. So I may have some revising on my hands to do before I can update again, which I am far too lazy to actually do at the moment.**

**Feedback is loved :)**

**-T.B.U.**


	2. The Two Brothers

Anlach's body was cold in his hands. Jareth could feel it as it seeped through his gloves. But his attention had been drawn elsewhere for the time being.

Well, _shit_.

Sarah Williams was standing in the door, dressed in a loose black robe tied haphazardly at the waist. Her long, dark hair fell down her back, past her elbows, tangled with sleep and sticking up in every which direction. Her striking green eyes were wide with surprise, though judging from the fact that she hadn't launched herself at him in a righteous fury, he assumed that she was content to just stand there and gawk. His tense shoulders relaxed; it was tedious enough, maneuvering through this world without getting iron poisoning, without having to fight off an angry mortal female.

Even so, if he had known for one second that his quest to find his older brother would have lead him straight into Williams' house (if one could call it that, for it was so sparsely furnished and unappealing…), he would have left his brother to his own fate. He had no real desire to see the girl again. Maybe once upon a time, he would have relished this opportunity to be face-to-face with her, but that spark had flickered out years ago.

The first few months were pure torture; Jareth was a master at games and tricks and petty deceptions. To be bested at his favourite game was a rather heavy blow to his ego, and he had wanted nothing more than to go after her Aboveground, to prove that he could not be beaten. But while his older brother Anlach had egged him on without much thought, Brechin, the youngest and the voice of reason among the three, had held him back.

Eventually, the problems in the Underground had drawn his attentions away from the girl. There was a stirring in the Northern Kingdoms, where the Dark Sidhe lurked and plotted. This was nothing new, really. They were known for picking their fights amongst each other, and the occasional attack on a passerby was usually overlooked; everyone knew the risks of going north, and if you got killed, then that was your problem. But while these attacks had been few and far between in the past, they were becoming more frequent now, and more violent as well.

Anlach was the Lord of the North; being the firstborn son, he was granted the title of most prestige. But he wasn't a good leader to his people; spoilt and irresponsible, he spent most of his days out chasing mortal women Aboveground, for he was beautiful, and he knew it, too. None of them could resist his charm and wit, something that he played to his advantage. When they were younger, his antics had amused his younger brothers, but now it was a downright annoyance. When Jareth wasn't running himself ragged, trying to maintain both his lands and keep an eye on the North, he and Brechin were often slinking around in the human realm, trying to weed out Anlach's half-Sidhe offspring. It was dangerous to let a magical being run around unchecked, so any…products of Anlach's activities always had to be found immediately.

_Looks like your stupidity has caught up with you, brother._

Well, Jareth looked the same as always. Sure, he hadn't appeared in her living room with the pomp and circumstance that he had before, but it wasn't storming tonight, so there was no crackling thunder to puncture his appearance. Besides, even without a thunderstorm, he still did pretty well for himself, if the broken glass on the floor was anything to go by.

His hair was still long, still crazy, and still that ridiculous shade of blonde. And still styled in that strange, gravity-defying way that would have looked incredibly ridiculous on anyone else. His eyes were trained on hers, one blue and one green, and one pupil slightly larger than the other, which was slightly disconcerting.

Sarah didn't know what to say without sounding like a total idiot, so decided to remain silent. But to her surprise, the King spoke for her.

"You're wondering what I'm doing here." It wasn't a question.

Sarah blinked. "Well, yeah." _Very eloquent, Sarah, good job! _She mentally patted herself on the back. Of all the stupid things to say. She braced herself for the snide comment she was probably going to receive.

But there was none. Jareth gestured to the owl. "This is my older brother, Anlach." At the mention of the name, the owl shifted a bit, and its eyelids fluttered to reveal eyes of the palest blue underneath. Kobold, who had been keeping out of the way until now, sprang back up onto the arm of the sofa and sniffed at the air curiously. Sarah, too, was curious, but she could exercise more control than her cat, and stayed where she was. But as quickly as the owl stirred, it was motionless again.

"Well, what's he doing up here?" Sarah ventured, deciding it was safe to prod.

Apparently, it wasn't. Jareth lifted his chin and stared down his nose at her with an air of disdain. "That is none of your concern. In fact, perhaps he could have made it back to the Underground if it hadn't been for _that._" He jerked his head toward the open cage on the floor with a small cloud of glitter.

Sarah pursed her lips. "And why's that?"

"Cold iron, girl. That cage is wrought with iron, just like the rest of this world."

Sarah swallowed. It had been a long time since she had pursued myths about faeries. "I didn't exactly major in faerie folklore when I was in college." She countered, hopping immediately on the defensive. A guilty part tugged at her; she should have known that such a beautiful creature couldn't have possibly been from Aboveground. She should have figured it out. But she had gone so long without really thinking about the magical creatures…Hoggle and Didymus and Ludo had become people to her, she didn't see them as monsters from another world…She didn't stop to think…

"From the lack of imagination in your life," Jareth said coolly, glancing around her Spartan apartment, "I'm not surprised to hear that."

Sarah made herself stand up straight and not flinch underneath the Goblin King's stare. It was funny how she had imagined that this encounter would be different. He could still make her feel like a foolish petulant child. But she was twenty-five, for God's sake! She could hold her own just fine without this pompous glitter-bastard leering over her.

"I didn't know that it was a…faerie," Sarah said the word with some hesitation, still not knowing exactly what they were. "Some kid just brought him to me and dumped him off on the counter in the pet store."

"Half…faerie," came a rasping reply to her statement. Sarah jumped, while Jareth, cool as ever, simply dropped the owl that had spoken. Sarah instinctively stepped forward and reached out, as if to catch it, but before it could hit the floor, the owl righted itself with a graceful flick of its wings, landing smoothly on both feet. Kobold followed the bird to the ground, meowing loudly, but the owl snapped its sharp beak at the black cat, who recoiled.

Sarah felt a flash of irritation. "Don't you bully my cat, you-" she broke off with a gap of surprise, for suddenly she wasn't addressing an animal anymore.

Anlach was tall and thin, standing a full head taller than Jareth and towering over her. His face was pale, and made of angles and planes that somehow all joined together to form something that was quite heartbreaking. They eyes were a pale, electric blue, and as they settled on Sarah, they narrowed. Sarah, who had stood her own in the Labyrinth and defended herself against its King, shuddered under the imperial gaze of this being. For if Jareth was cool in most aspects, his brother could only be described as ice.

One pale, sweeping eyebrow quirked up. "Who is this unsightly creature?" His voice was smooth and articulate, like he had just fallen out of a perfect romance novel, and yet was still as cold as freshly fallen winter snow.

At being called "unsightly", Sarah bristled; she liked to consider herself an easy-going person most of the time, but, hey, she did have her feminine pride. But before she could make a smart-ass remark, Jareth's voice cut across her irritable thoughts.

"This unsightly creature is none of your concern." Though his tone was stiff, Sarah thought she could hear a bit of underlying affection there.

The platinum-haired man turned his head slightly to lock eyes with Jareth, and his mouth widened in a smile. Sarah wondered how many women he had mesmerized with that single look; even she, who had just been insulted, was intrigued.

"But isn't she, though?" His voice turned playful. "There has never been a time where I wake up in a woman's house and not remember how I got there."

Jareth scoffed and crossed his arms. "Quite an impressive feat, considering how much you get around."

Anlach laughed, and the sound was boyish, light, and merry. "Oh, little brother, you have become too waspish for me to handle." He looked back at Sarah, and an impish look crossed his face. "But perhaps you are so defensive because she is yours?"

"Do not be ridiculous."

Though Sarah had been thinking those exact same words, she felt something prickle inside of her as Jareth spoke those clipped words. Was it disappointment? Hurt? Anger? She couldn't tell for sure.

But the pale-haired man was curious, and he leaned closer to Sarah to take her in. "Do not lie to me, Jar-Bear, I can sense when you smudge the truth, you know."

Jareth's face turned an unsightly shade of purple that didn't match well with his hair. Sarah, unable to resist a snort of amusement, leaned around the other person (who, incidentally, was moving in far too close for her comfort) to cast Jareth a jeering glance.

"Jar-Bear?"

"Hush, Sarah," he snapped back tightly, glowering at her until she looked away.

Anlach's eyes lit up like a child's on Christmas morning. "Sarah? Sarah Williams?" He reached out to grasp her hand, flipping it over to press a kiss to her palm. Electricity shot up her wrist and into her arm, giving Sarah a jolt as she gawked down at the faerie half-bent before her. Hold on…didn't he just call her ugly not two minutes ago? Good God, it was no wonder he "got around" as Jareth had put it; there probably wasn't one woman who could stand the mood swings.

"I have heard so much about you, Lady."

She pulled her hand out of his, slowly as to not seem impolite. "Really?"

"Oh, yes. Though other girls have run the labyrinth in the past and beaten it, you were the only one to have such an effect-" A sound box on the side of the head sent Anlach stumbling. Jareth stood in his place, looking thoroughly annoyed.

Sarah sucked in her breath. He was standing so close, she could see every intricate pattern in the black armor, illuminated by the moonlight. The glitter in his hair, fine as dust and so subtle it was barely noticeable, caught the light and gave him a glowing, ethereal appearance. She caught herself staring, and dropped her gaze before he could catch her at it. Luckily, he was too busy glaring at his older brother to pay her any mind.

"I fail to remember anyone asking for you to spout my personal past," he bit out, hands on his hips. Anlach, having regained his balance, looked entertained.

"I fail to remember needing permission to do so," he teased back, ducking when Jareth chucked a crystal at him. "Though I have to admit, I would have never expected someone so plain."

Jareth snorted. "Just because she isn't naked and throwing herself at me like a whore doesn't make her plain. We don't have a similar taste in women, as I recall." Anlach waved a lazy hand, and a strong breeze whipped through the living room, sending several things crashing to the floor. A snowglobe (an ugly, horrid thing that Karen had gotten for Sarah for a Christmas present with an apple floating inside and words on the base proclaiming: NYC: THE BIG APPLE) fell from its shelf. The globe separated from the base and rolled slowly across the floor, coming to a stop against Jareth's booted foot.

Normally, Sarah would be beside herself if her apartment was being destroyed like this. Kobold was making his displeasure known; he had streaked out of the room at the first sign of unrest and was probably hiding in the laundry basket in Sarah's closet. But this was too interesting to pass up. She shifted back to the wall, well out of the way, while the two went at each other, a friendly, brotherly scuffle.

* * *

"So you do fancy her then," Anlach hissed in Jareth's ear when the Goblin King pinned him to the floor.

"Maybe I did at one point," Jareth snarled back, his voice too low for Sarah to hear, "but those days are long past."

"But you defend her so well for someone who doesn't care!" Anlach reached into the volumes of his hair, and when his hand re-emerged, it was holding a small white feather. Jareth's eyes widened.

"Don't you dare-"

Anlack blew lightly on the piece of fluffy down, and suddenly, half of Sarah's apartment was covered with snow, and Jareth had been thrown back across the room.

Smirking, Anlach replaced the feather from where it had come from. "I can still beat you in a fight anytime, anywhere," he crowed, and reached behind him to pull himself up off the floor. But when his hands closed around what was behind him, fire lanced up his arm, and he cried out in pain, catching both Jareth and Sarah's attention; he had accidentally touched the iron cage, which had been forgotten in their scuffle.

The atmosphere in the room went from playful to tense in the span of a single second. Jareth was up on his feet and standing by Anlach in the blink of an eye. In the back of his mind, he noted that Sarah was drawing closer, and he could sense her curiosity and anxiety prickling at his back as he bent over his older brother.

"Open your hand."

The Northern Lord shuddered and straightened his fingers, which had automatically curled in on his palm the minute he had touched the cold iron.

The burn was large and shiny, dominating his entire hand. Jareth removed his gloves and put his own hand tentatively over his brother's, not quite touching, but close enough to feel the pulsating heat that came off of his skin in waves. The sensation was unpleasant, and caused the skin on Jareth's palm to tingle in an uncomfortable way. With the lightest of touches, the tip of his forefinger brushed against Anlach's hand, and he sent a small surge of his own magic and power towards the place where they connected. There was a small spark where they touched, and then Anlach's palm turned to ice, the burn mark beginning to fade away.

As his brother recovered from the minor shock, Jareth straightened up and tugged his gloves back on. He probably should have let the fool suffer; maybe if he got iron poisoning badly enough, he would think twice about his escapes Aboveground. But he wasn't cruel at heart, and Anlach was family. He would have done the same for Jareth if their positions had been reversed, though the Goblin King was quite certain he would never be stupid enough to over-expose himself to such dangerous elements.

A brush against his calf almost made him jump out of his boots, and he knew before looking down that it was Sarah's little wretch. The black cat had apparently decided that it was safe to come out, and was now making a nuisance of himself, twining in and out of Jareth's legs, leaving his fur behind on the dark breeches. Annoyed, though ever the gentleman, Jareth leaned down to give the cat a rough stroke, hoping that it would go away. The cat, however, had other intentions, and instead strolled up to where Anlach was still lying in a half-daze.

"Kobold, no." Sarah's voice was firm and commanding, and the cat looked over his shoulder at her reproachfully before completely disobeying her order and sauntering right up to his brother's side. Jareth, irritated, had half a mind to go kick the miserable beast like one of his goblins, but courtesy held him back; he and his brother had already destroyed half of Sarah's home, and to kill her cat would probably just complicate matters further.

But so far, there hadn't been a temper tantrum. There hadn't been a wailing of _"It's not fair!"_ or a recital of the "you have no power over me" speech. In fact, Sarah seemed to be taking it all in stride. Perhaps she had grown up. Jareth turned a bemused eye on the older girl, who had detached herself from the wall once the fighting was over to edge closer. A smirk tugged at his mouth. Perhaps this was why Sarah kept the cat around, though it seemed it couldn't really care to listen to her at all. They had similar personalities; defiance, boldness, and an edge of a sassy attitude all covered up with a blanket of intelligence and clever wits.

But that was the Sarah from ten years ago, not the Sarah of the present. Jareth eyed this unfamiliar woman, who was the same yet different, with a prickle of unease as he realized that he couldn't predict her next move. Already she had proven herself to be far more than the petulant princess that he had been enamored with that night, and this change in personality unnerved him. He was used to holding the high hand, and didn't quite like it when someone else held the ace.

"Ko-_bold_." Her irritation seeped into her tone, but the cat continued to ignore her, pacing fervently around Anlach's head. His brother was beginning to stir, and by Jareth's estimation and previous experience, would probably be back on his feet as if nothing happened in no time. He turned back to Sarah.

"That is quite an interesting name."

The girl swiveled around, surprised. "Huh?"

Jareth was amused by her apparent lack of grace, both on her feet and with her vocabulary. "Do you have any idea what that word even means?"

Sarah blinked and stared at him with a befuddled expression on her face. "Kobold? Um…I dunno. I just remember when I was younger, I was reading this book about faeries, and the name…" her voice trailed off as she shook her head. When she opened her eyes again, they were clear, and she glanced away, as if realizing that she was sharing her life with a person she didn't care for nor did she fully trust. Jareth didn't quite know how he felt about that, so he pressed onward, ignoring her silence.

_Reading about faeries, were you? I'll bet you were. _The smirk grew more pronounced. "Do you happen to remember what that book said about the Kobold?"

Sarah shrugged, and a fiery light began to spark in her eyes. "No, not really. What makes you so interested in it?"

_Ah, there she is, _Jareth thought, entertained. He took a childish delight in still being able to torment her and upset her with so little effort. "A Kobold is a sprite, and while they are harmless in most aspects and are sometimes helpful, they are known to play mischievous tricks on those who displease them." He arched one of his sweeping eyebrows as he watched her. "Sound familiar to you?"

Her face crinkled in a thoughtful way and she frowned. He waited patiently. Suddenly her face paled considerably and she lifted her head to stare at him. "That sounds like a go-"

"Away, you miserable demon!"

There was a smacking sound, and Kobold screeched in displeasure as he streaked away, taking care to avoid the patches of snow still sitting on Sarah's floor. Jareth turned to see Anlach getting to his feet and dusting himself off, being quite sure that he was as far away from the cage as was possible.

Sarah rounded on his brother furiously, her hands clenched in fists. "Did you just hit my cat?"

"Cat!" Anlach snapped back, losing the majority of his charm in the face of her anger. "That was no cat, 'Twas a demon! A wretch! Filth!" Jareth rolled his eyes at his older brother's dramatics. How the Northern Kingdoms were still standing with his brother in charge was completely beyond him.

"Enough, brother," Jareth intervened, cutting across Sarah's angry retort. Both turned their heads to glare at him, though he remained quite impassive. Finally, with a huff of annoyance, Anlach stepped back with a stiff incline of his head. "Miss Williams," he ground out, and then he turned on his heel, vanishing in a cloud of powdery smoke and white downy feathers.

Sarah looked horribly confused and upset, and Jareth exhaled heavily. "Forgive my brother, he is not used to women being angry with him."

Her face softened a bit. "But I thought he would be used to women by now, from what you were saying."

Jareth chuckled softly. "No, he is always gone before they wake up in the morning."

This elicited a small smile from her and Jareth sighed again. What were they doing here? Him in his battle regalia, out ready to tear down Aboveground to find his brother, and her in her state of disarray, with tangled hair and a dark bathrobe that hung heavily off her shoulders. Two complete opposites, who had met years before as rivals, and yet now were exchanging trivial, humorous words with each other, even though this was their first meeting in ten years.

_And probably the last, _he thought. Was he indifferent? He didn't know. He turned away from her without another word, preparing to leave.

"Wait!"

He snapped his head around to stare at her. "What is it?"

"Er, my apartment…?"

Oh. Right.

He looked around at the snow covered living room and shattered window. He normally didn't do repairs, but seeing as how his stupid brother had been the cause of it all…it couldn't hurt. He conjured up a crystal out of thin air, and tried to imagine the apartment the way it was before he had half-destroyed it.

But he couldn't.

Jareth frowned. He didn't know what her home had looked like before he had entered it, and trying to just make something up could have disastrous results. Reluctantly, he stepped towards Sarah, who to her credit, did not back down, even though he was quite an imposing figure in his armor. Wordlessly, he held out the crystal in front of her, and before he could stop it, an image leaped to the front of his mind.

_If I turn it this way…_

Go. Away.

Sarah looked wary and suspicious. "Why?"

He sighed in exasperation. "I don't know what your apartment looked like before I came. You need to think in your mind about what it normally looks like. Unless your cat can come out here and do it for you?" He allowed a sneer to curl across his face and a mocking tone entered his words, for he suspected that if he riled her, she would act without thinking. Of course, he was correct.

Her eyes flashed. With short, jagged strides, she marched up to where Jareth stood and, without removing her eyes from his, placed her hand on top of the crystal he held.

_Tut tut, girl. Such defiance will get you into trouble._

_

* * *

  
_

Sarah refused to close her eyes in anticipation for what would happen, choosing instead to glare in the Goblin King's face. She forced herself to think about her living room, about the sofa, the intricate patterns on the carpet, the slight crack in the window from when she and Toby had played Wiffle Ball inside and he had accidentally hit the glass with his bat. But as the crystal grew warm underneath her hands and the magic flowed up around her, her concentration began to slip. She remembered the only time she had felt like this had happened ten years ago after she had bitten into a magical peach and landed in the middle of a masquerade…

Suddenly, it was over. The crystal underneath her hand vanished, and so did its owner. There was no dramatic poof of glitter or feathers like Anlach. Just gone, without a sound. Like he had never even been there at all.

She glanced around at her apartment. It looked exactly the same as it did when she had stumbled out of bed that morning. No snow, no feathers. Even the cage was gone, for Sarah had not imagined it when she thought about how her living room looked every day. It was as if the two brothers had never even entered her home.

There was a disgruntled "mrrow", and Sarah looked up to see Kobold peering at her from her bedroom.

"Oh, so now you want my bed again, now that the Ice Prince is gone?" Sarah said coolly. It was silly to be angry with her cat, for even if he could understand her, he wouldn't care anyways. But she was frustrated. This morning had felt like any other morning, and she had woken up fresh for a new day. How quickly it had soured with that boy…Hmmm. She had meant to ask Jareth about that, but other events (like a blizzard blowing away half her living room) had driven it from her mind.

Kobold howled again.

"Fine, fine!" Before ducking into her room for some much-needed sleep, Sarah glanced at the clock on the wall. Just twelve numbers, like any ordinary clock should have. With a sigh of relief, the young woman shut her door firmly behind her and climbed into bed, only having to fight with her cat seconds later over possession of the pillows.

What she hadn't noticed was the snowglobe. The globe had been repaired and was seated firmly on the base, but in place of the apple that had been inside before, a peach now floated amongst the clouds of glitter.

* * *

**-snickers- Anlach doesn't like Kobold because cats shed fur all over his beautiful clothes. Of course, this is coming from someone who pulls feathers out of his hair, so...  
**

**This chapter was pretty fun to write, portraying guys as drama queens is oddly entertaining. Don't you all wish that you had Anlach as your older brother?**

**"Jar-Bear" comes from "Jer-Bear", which we call this guy in our math class whose name is Jerry.**

**Please read and review, feedback is always greatly appreciated!**

**-T.B.U.**

**Ps: Shoutout to ChilaliSnowbird, who gets the brownies for knowing what a Kobold is, and also to Satan'sPixie, who almost hit the nail on the head about who the owl was ;) This chapter's challenge: where do the names "Anlach" and 'Brechin" come from?  
**


	3. The Bar Talk

"So, what's a hot babe like you doin' in a hell-hole like this?"

Sarah looked up from where she was drying off a glass to shoot a dark glare at the redneck hotshot that had swaggered up to the bar. From his broad shoulders and tall, straight frame, he couldn't be more then thirty-five, but his face was weathered from the sun, giving his skin a leathery, creased appearance. All in all, he looked like a humanoid bloodhound with all those wrinkles.

With a sigh, she turned and placed the glace in the cupboards behind the counter. She got these types every once in a while, the ones who thought that she would be easy just because she was a bartender. The easiest way to deal with them, she had discovered, was to ignore them completely. Eventually, they would go away, or one of her older friends at the bar would take care of him for her. Even now, before this guy had made any major move, Red Namerof was already glowering at him over his glass. Red had been with the NYPD before retiring; his wife had died a few years before from cancer, and so he would sometimes slip quietly into the bar to forget his despair before going out, just as silently. Sarah listened to him talk about her, and didn't judge him when he cried, and so he appreciated her for that.

The jerk rapped loudly on the counter. "Hey! I'm talkin' to you!"

Red shifted, but Sarah caught his eye and gave her head a subtle shake. These men annoyed her to no extent, but right now she was at a stage that she could deal with. Red nodded and swirled his drink around in his glass, but remained watchful. Somewhere in the front of the bar, the door opened, but the newcomer didn't come to the counter, so Sarah kept her focus on her current predicament.

"Can I help you, sir?"

He cocked his head and copped a lean against the bar. "Yeah, you can. What time your shift end, sweetie?"

Sarah threw up in her mouth a little. His breath smelled like chewing tobacco, and as he leaned closer, his eyes, which were sunk back into the creases of his face, were dark and cold. When he smiled at her (leered, more like), the smile didn't touch his eyes, and it gave him an odd, off-balanced appearance that Sarah didn't like.

She was spared from having to answer when Emmaline, the waitress, came up with an empty tray. "Table two needs a refill, Willy," she said cheerfully, using the unusual nickname that she had come up with for Sarah when she had first started working here. Sarah, who was usually annoyed at this pet name, was suddenly grateful; if this hick found out her real name, she probably would have to go home and hang herself.

"Sure thing, Em." She reached for the glasses underneath the counter and proceeded to fill them up with their respective drinks. She watched the man out of the corner of her eye; he was watching Emmaline now with a predatory expression on his face, and anger bubbled and frothed in her chest. Em could be irritating with her child-like cheerfulness and optimism, but she was sincere and kind. If this moron thought he could go after her, he had another thing coming. When she re-emerged with the drinks in her hand, she got the shock of her life.

The other stranger, the one who had just entered the bar, had approached the counter at last. His hair was cropped to his shoulders and he had lost the ridiculous clothing, but it was definitely him. Turning back to Em to give her her drinks (and to collect herself), Sarah set the glasses on the tray.

"Make sure you bring the empty ones back," Sarah muttered, but Em was gawking at the newcomer, who gave her a sly wink. The waitress blushed and scuttled away without affirming that she had heard Sarah's order.

It had been three weeks since that spectacular encounter in Sarah's living room, and if it hadn't been for Kobold's excessive jumpiness, and the fact that she found a few owl feathers in the storage room at the pet shop, she would have been certain that it had all been an extremely funky dream. And now, here was the final proof that yes, Jareth and his brother had indeed had a brief fight in her apartment.

Anlach was sitting at her bar.

At first, he didn't notice that she had noticed him. He just sat there, his elbow propped against the counter, his fingers idly twirling his hair as he scanned the bar with a lazy look in his eyes. As she watched, his gaze landed briefly on the backside of one Halley Chestershire, a good-looking yet snooty waitress, and the only other worker in the bar at the moment besides Sarah, Em, and Paul, who worked in the back with the dishes. An appreciative expression crossed his features, but Sarah cleared her throat. He turned his head to face her, and grinned a grin full of wickedness.

"Good evening, dear." His voice was smooth and silky, so much different from when he had departed from her living room after striking her cat. She was still a bit put out about that. The redneck glanced between her and Anlach with a look of disappointment at Anlach's use of the endearment and then sauntered away. The pale-haired Sidhe nodded after him with the same nasty expression on his face. "Was he troubling you?"

Sarah snorted. "More than you can imagine, but it's nothing I can't handle."

"Mmhmm." Anlach leaned forward and propped his head up with his hands to regard her with his bright blue eyes. This meeting was really starting to freak her out. What was it with faeries? Were all of them like this, or was it just something passed down in the family? "Are you sure? Because I can certainly take care of him." His hand clenched as he spoke, and the corded muscles, so apparent now that he was wearing only a white t-shirt and faded jeans, rippled underneath his skin. Sarah had no doubt that he could.

Sarah grimaced. "Thanks, but I can hold my own." Deciding to play her part, she gestured around to the bottles of alcohol around her. "Would you like something to drink?"

Anlach sniffed disdainfully and eyed the bar with the expression of someone who was observing a decaying dungeon cell. "Please. Some of the wines that I carry in my home are older than this establishment, and probably cost twice as much. There is nothing here that you can offer me." He gave a toss of his hair, which not only managed to catch the light perfectly like in the movies, but also caught the attention of some of the other women.

Sarah's jaw tightened at his insufferable attitude. "Then why are you even here?"

The Sidhe groaned dramatically and rolled his pale eyes. "Jareth's being a stick in the mud. He says he won't come Aboveground for me again. Of course," he winked, "that's what Brechin is for. He's the only good one in the family."

_There's a good one? _"Then I supposed he's a very distant relative?"

Anlach snickered. "Very clever guess, you wretched girl, but also wrong. Brechin is the littlest brother."

Suddenly, despite of his witty comeback and so far easy demeanor, Anlach stiffened in his chair, his head turning to the side slightly. "Salt," he muttered, and Sarah blinked. Were Fae susceptible to salt poisoning as well? Would she really have to child-proof her home in case she had any more surprise visits?

A strangled sob echoed from one of the tables, and Sarah craned her head around Anlach's body to get a better view of what was going on. She vaguely registered in her mind that Red, the protector of the girls, had already gone home for the night, leaving them virtually on their own, save for Paul. But Paul was thin and brittle and uninterested in conflict, and wouldn't have been much help anyways.

Emmaline had her back to them, but her head was bent and her shoulders were slumped down in an uncharacteristic posture of defeat. There were no raised voices, but as Sarah strained her ears for anything amiss, she caught an undertone of a low, sarcastic voice, which was probably coming from the man seated at the table where Em was standing. The others in the bar began to quiet down, and as they did, Sarah heard the telltale twang in the man's voice; it was that damn redneck from earlier.

Sarah bristled angrily and was going to walk around the bar to go beat the shit out of him, but to her surprise, someone else got there first.

With inhuman speed, Anlach was at Emmaline's shoulder. Complete silence fell; the only thing that was more comforting to a depressed person than liquor was watching someone else's life go up in smoke. Sarah felt disgusted at their anticipation, but couldn't deny her curiosity. Anlach was standing so close to her friend that his pale silver hair, which had lengthened somewhat, became mixed with Em's fiery locks.

"What you wan'?" the bastard sneered coldly. Sarah flinched, feeling a brief pang of sympathy for him; Anlach had destroyed half her living room with a single breath of air. This guy wouldn't know what hit him.

Anlach drew himself up to his full, considerable height, completely towering over the girl next to him. Sarah couldn't see the entire scene from where she was standing, but she was willing to bet that this had wiped the smugness off of that farmboy's face. The room seemed to crackle with energy and magic, causing the hair on the back of Sarah's neck to stand on end. The only time she had ever been exposed to such raw power was when she had entered the Escher room and witnessed all the things that she had thought only existed in dreams.

When Anlach spoke, his voice was as cool as winter's first snow, and just as unforgiving. "What makes you think you can treat a lady as such, whelp?" Em looked up at him with an expression of disbelief mingled with gratitude.

A snort of laughter. "Lady? A lady don't work in a bar, faerie. Their place is at home." Sarah wrinkled her nose in distaste at his bigotry. If he was like this when he wasn't drunk, then he was probably completely intolerable when he was. A shiver also ran up her spine at his use of the word "faerie". He had spat it with just enough contempt to hint at something more than just a stupid insult.

Jareth's brother laughed airily and tossed his head. "Elf, actually." His response elicited a few titters from the customers in the bar.

_Elf? I guess I didn't notice the pointy ears. _She supposed if Anlach could strut around with short hair and normal clothes, it probably wouldn't be too difficult for him to alter his appearance at all.

He spoke again. "If you had any sense about you, sir, you would leave now." Anlach's voice still had that light, cool quality, but his words held the promise of a terrible threat. Everyone held their breath, except for Sarah, who had felt a certain sort of electricity spark through the room. This magic wasn't as powerful as Anlach's, but sweeter, smoother, and a touch more seductive. Sarah's body tightened. This was familiar magic. Outside the window, a shadow flew across the moon.

The hick stood, and the crown of his head barely reached Anlach's chin. The Sidhe stood there calmly, and Sarah imagined that his expression would be one of antagonizing mischief. She waited for the first blow to be landed, but it never came. The redneck, obviously smarted than she had given him credit for, simply grumbled something and swept out the door stiffly. As he flung the door open to exit, someone slipped in as he went, with familiar wild hair and mismatched eyes that would be recognizable anywhere, even though their owner had donned a button-down white shirt and black slacks for the occasion.

_Oh Jesus, am I going to have the whole family in here? _Sarah thought irritably as she turned her back and ducked her head. Her last meeting with Jareth had gone so well, and she was prepared to go on with life assuming that he didn't completely despise her (hence why he hadn't strangled her on the spot). But now that he was here again, one of them was probably going to screw up that tentative peace.

Emmaline came over, shaken, but otherwise unharmed. Anlach hovered behind her like some overbearing hen watching over her chick. She pawed delicately at her face and leaned against the counter top, letting out a deep sigh as she did so. Jareth slid over to come shoulder-to-shoulder with his brother, and gave him an accusatory, annoyed glare. In response, Anlach gave his Cheshire grin and half-hearted shrug, which Sarah was beginning to learn meant "Don't blame me".

Sarah ignored them and wrapped an arm around Em's shoulder with a glance at the clock: 12:33 AM. "Why don't you just go on home for the night, Em, it looks like everyone is leaving anyways." It was true; several of the customers, uneasy after the minor confrontation and already tired at the lateness of the hour to begin with, had begun to trickle out the door and into the night. Only a few of the diehard drinkers remained, but even they looked a little nervous.

Anlach stepped forward immediately. "Allow me to escort-"

"No," Sarah cut off firmly. He may have had his little brief moment in the hero's spotlight, but he was a lady's man through and through. She didn't want to have to scrape Emmaline off the pavement after he dumped her there. But to her surprise, Em laid a gentle hand on Sarah's arm.

"It's all right, Sarah, I think I can trust him." Em obviously thought that Sarah was suspicious of Anlach's intentions; a strange man neither of them knew was certainly capable of some heinous crimes. But while Sarah didn't think Anlach would murder or rape her, she was certain that he would use her. But she couldn't exactly tell her friend that; she'd want to know how Sarah knew so much about Anlach's personality…and to her surprise, Sarah realized she didn't know much at all, just what she had gleaned from the brothers' conversation three weeks before. Well then…

She cast Anlach a suspicious glare; his face looked innocent enough, betraying only a polite concern over Em's welfare. She narrowed her eyes at him, and he smiled back and shrugged again. She looked back to Em. "Don't do anything I wouldn't do."

She smiled brightly, looking like her usual, chipper self again. "Well, that severely limits my options, but I'll try my hardest. Do you have a car?" This question was directed at Anlach, who looked stumped only for a second (of course he didn't have a car) before recovering smoothly.

"If we took yours, you would have it with you in the morning without having to have someone drop it off for you."

Em looked puzzled. "But how would you get back to your home?"

He smiled at her genuine concern and elbowed Jareth in the side. "That's what my brother is for, my dear."

"Oh, you have a brother?" Emmaline extended her hand immediately. "Emmaline Luftig, and you are…?"

"Jareth." At least he had the good grace to look interested as he squeezed her hand once before dropping it again. He wasn't wearing his customary gloves. As they exchanged niceties, Sarah looked away, determined to keep herself preoccupied with something else lest she start staring.

"…my friend Sarah." She jerked her head up at that last comment.

The other three were staring at her like they were expecting her to do something; she wondered if pulling a rabbit out of a hat would suffice. Luckily for her, Anlach broke the ice, though in a way she definitely didn't agree with.

"This is the part where you shake my hand and say how pleased you are to meet me," he supplied, and Sarah smiled at his quick wit, putting out her hand. Ever the charmer, Anlach swept it up to his lips, placing a chaste kiss on her knuckles before dropping it again. A sly look wormed its way onto his face. "Now that we're acquainted, Miss Sarah, allow me to introduce my brother, Jareth, presuming that you haven't met each other before?" When Sarah and Jareth both turned their annoyed expressions on him, he plastered a look of innocence on his face and grinned.

Sarah obliged in his childish game, if only to keep Em in the dark for that much longer; she loved the girl, but she could be very annoying with nonstop questions. "No we have not."

Anlach looked like a child in a candy store as he rounded on his brother. "Well then, dear brother, do not be so rude." Jareth's eyes flashed.

Sarah ground her teeth together. It wasn't as if she had any big problem with Jareth anymore, she just didn't feel like being treated like she was on a matchmaking game show. The words that had passed between them before her escape from the Escher Room had been just that. Words. Empty phrases that would have given Jareth the upper hand had she chosen to believe them. Words that would have lost her the challenge, and, consequently, her little brother. She didn't exactly appreciate Anlach trying to build some imaginary romance on top of lies and trickery.

Jareth held out his hand, and Sarah, still on the other side of the counter, reached across to grasp it.

They touched. Sarah wasn't exactly sure what she had been expecting to happen. Would there suddenly be a snake in her hands? An enchanted peach? A crystal that showed her dreams from every which angle? No. There were no illusions this time, no tricks or deceptions. Just Jareth's hand, which was surprisingly hot against her skin, touching her own cool palm. In that heartbeat, several things happened. Her eyes made contact with Jareth's, for one, and she was surprised to see the intensity of his dark gaze. Had she still been fifteen, running scared in the Labyrinth, she would have melted into a sticky puddle on the floor. But she wasn't; she had been through college, for God's sake, and seen many a man with that same expression. This wasn't any different.

The magic she had felt early suddenly increased tenfold around her, shooting through her palm and into her hand, up her arm, into her chest, snaking its tendrils slowly around her heart and lungs until her breath caught painfully. She remembered that to heal Anlach's iron poisoning, Jareth had touched him with his bare hands, and now she could see why. Apparently, magic traveled the fasted through the fingers, and carried its full potency. She wondered if Em had felt the same thing. If she had, she hadn't betrayed it, and Sarah suddenly wondered what she looked like.

She also remembered that when Jareth had come to Anlach's aide, he had said his name.

_Names have power._

"Sarah," her name sounded so sultry and passionate, coming out of his mouth in that smooth tone. Shivers rippled up and down her spine.

"Jareth, she replied, her tone mimicking his without any effort on her part. His grip on her hand intensified briefly before he dropped it away, breaking all contact. The magic fell apart, and Sarah withdrew her own hand hesitantly to her own side of the counter to fall into her bar stool. Jareth's face was flushed slightly, and she could only imagine how she must look. She felt a need to get out of there, away from all the magic, before she exploded.

Anlach was looking incredibly pleased with himself. "Well, now that the introductions are over-"

Sarah jumped up out of her seat. "Bathroom," she muttered as she ducked into the back. She passed Paul, doing his dishes and bobbing his head to the beat of whatever music was blaring in his headphones. Obviously he hadn't had a single clue as to what had happened in the last ten minutes.

She threw open the faculty bathroom door, locking it behind her. Of course she didn't really have to use the restroom. It was the privacy she needed. She forced herself to look at her reflection in the mirror.

If ever there was a human comparison to the phrase "bitch in heat", this was definitely it. Her cheeks were rosy and flushed, and the wild magic that had coursed through her had tangled and mussed her hair and swollen her lips. Her dark green eyes were nearly black with desire, the pupil having taken up most of her iris. Her skin was still warm, and her breath was coming in short pants.

_What. The. Hell._

In about five seconds, she had gone from a normal girl being forced into a faerie game to some kind of incarnation of Aphrodite. This was not happening to her. It wasn't fa-…she wouldn't even dare complete that thought.

Sarah turned on the cold water and splashed it hastily onto her face, blanching as it went down her shirt and dampened her hair. It was freezing. But whatever. She had dealt with Jareth so well in her apartment, so calmly. Why was tonight any different? Was it because he had touched her, said her name? Or maybe because she wasn't half-asleep and in total shock to find two Underground beings fighting in her living room?

She turned off the water and studied her reflection again. The blush was gone from her face, her eyes back to their normal color. Her hair was…well, worse off than before, but that's what always happened when it got wet. Her heart was still pounding a mile a minute, though, and somehow, Sarah knew that no amount of cold water would fix that. She smoothed down her hair as best as she could and exited the dingy room.

Paul was still swaying back and forth as he rhythmically washed, dried, washed, dried. Sarah said his name to get his attention, but he continued to rock to his music, until she marched up and yanked them off. He looked around with stupid bewilderment that was typical of him.

"What?"

"We're closing early tonight," Sarah informed him, having just reached that decision a second ago.

Paul grinned. "Closing at one in the morning? Now that's my kind of early." He gestured to the few dishes remaining. "Let me just finish these up, and I'll close up. Don't wait around." He plucked his headphones back out of her grip and put them back on, turning back to the sink. Sarah just shook her head good-naturedly and did not comment, continuing towards the kitchen door that led back out to the bar counter.

She rested a hand on the swinging door for a moment to steel herself. She was sure they would have already left, but those two were about as unpredictable as the weather. One minute it could be sunny and bright, the next dark and stormy. To be honest, it was getting quite tedious to deal with.

_Are you a woman, or are you a woman? Get out there and stand tall._

Her inner voice was nagging at her, and she knew she should listen, but she was so frightened. She didn't know what had happened or why it did, and she wasn't ready to face him again until she was certain that there wouldn't be any repeat performances. She was definitely going to kill Anlach the next time she saw him, the little twat.

She boldly pushed the door open.

The bar was empty; she could have cried tears of relief for not having to own up to her little meltdown, but a quiet cough interrupted her rejoicing. She turned, her heart dropping down somewhere in her stomach as she did so.

Jareth was sitting in a corner of the room, half-hidden in the shadow and way out of Sarah's peripheral vision, which was why she hadn't noticed him at first. Once she had seen him, he slid forward under one of the lamps the hung off the ceiling, giving her a questioning glance.

"Are you alright?"

_Why do you care? _Sarah thought waspishly, but decided to take the diplomatic route. "I'm…okay," she confessed, running her fingers absentmindedly through her damp hair. Jareth watched the gesture, his face betraying nothing. Sarah noticed that his flush was gone too, and his eyes were back to that eerie pale color that they had normally.

He stepped forward, inclining his head slightly. "Just okay?" His voice took on a mocking, disbelieving tone that caused Sarah to automatically start grinding her teeth. She forced herself not to take a step back to mirror his step forward, reminding herself that there was a very solid counter between them.

Sarah narrowed her eyes. "Fine. I'm…" -she cast around for a word- "…peachy."

_Oh come on, of all the words to use._

Jareth smirked. "Glad to hear it. I couldn't help but overhear that you are closing at one." He looked at the old clock that was hanging behind her head. "We still have about five minutes."

_We? Where'd the "we" suddenly come from?_

"I would like something to drink."

Sarah arched in eyebrow, somewhat surprised at his mundane request, but covering that with an acidic response. "Not as high and mighty as your brother, are you?" she said coolly as she reached down behind the counter to get an empty glass. Not once did her eyes leave Jareth's approaching form.

He perched lightly on the bar stool directly across from her. "Anlach is spoiled by his wealth. He imports only the finest of liquors into his kingdom, and only a select few of those ever make it into his kitchens. He will not settle for less. Just whisky," he added, seeing Sarah's hesitation.

"And what are you? Poor?" Sarah asked as she poured the alcohol into the glass, which was a bit bigger than the standard shot, but she had the feeling that Jareth was no lightweight.

Jareth took the glass from her with a polite dip of his head. "I am by no means poor. However, consider the company I keep, and maybe you will understand why I am a bit more down-to-earth than my brother."

"Touché," Sarah replied. Trying to manage a court of goblins was enough to humble anyone, and though Jareth certainly didn't fit the definition of humble, she couldn't imagine Anlach doing his job, his pristine face and clothes surrounded by hordes of dirty, unreasonable goblins. He drained his glass in five seconds and set it back down on the counter.

Sarah reached for it. "Would you-"

"No, thank you." She dropped her hands as the clock ticked.

Jareth folded his fingers together and regarded her with his strange eyes. Her insides squirmed, but Sarah outwardly refused to fidget under his gaze, no matter how unnerving it was. "Something is troubling you. Tell me."

_Hell no. This isn't some alcoholics anonymous meeting where you stand up and spill all your problems out to people you don't know._

Sarah ignored him and went back to wiping the counters, which was what she had been doing before this whole ordeal had even started. The silence stretched out, and she stole a glance at the clock. One more minute, and then Jareth would have to leave.

He chuckled. "I'll stay as long as it takes, Sarah. Neither of us are trapped by the clock this time."

She shivered when he said her name again, but remained calm. "Paul-"

"-is a human, and therefore, no match for me." As if to prove his point, Jareth flicked his wrist and a crystal appeared at his fingertips. Inside was an image of Paul, wiping off the counters in the kitchen, still listening to his music. Sarah found herself mentally comparing his scrawny form to Jareth's lean, mortal stature, and had to concede the point.

Her eyes slitted. "Why the sudden interest?"

Jareth clenched his fist and the crystal vanished, crushed within his fingers. "Any girl who manages to capture the special attention of my dear older brother warrants my attention as well."

Sarah blinked. "Then shouldn't you be following Emmaline?"

Another half-smile. "Do not mistake Anlach's 'chivalry' for affection. He will most likely take her home and then proceed to take her to bed if she is willing, which," his lip curled, "I have no doubt that she is."

Sarah bristled defensively. "Em is my friend! How dare you say that about her? You don't know her!"

Jareth looked unaffected by her wrath. "I know what I see. Anlach has very fine features, and there is no woman who can resist him. I am merely pointing out that if he made an advance, she would not deny him."

"I'm quite sure that I would be able to resist him."

"Are you so certain?"

"Of course I am! Anlach is nothing but a shallow person who places all his values on what looks the prettiest and what's the most expensive. That's not my type."

"Oh?" Jareth tipped his head to the side. "Then what is your type?"

Sarah glowered at him. "That's none of your business. So what's this special interest that Anlach has in me?"

"It's not a romantic interest, if that is what you're worried about. You're far to plain to tempt him." "What really interested him-" he spoke of Sarah's sputtering indignation, "-was how a girl was so little imagination could beat my Labyrinth."

Well, that was unexpected. "Who says I don't have any imagination?"

Jareth scoffed. "Look at you. Gray shirt and black pants. Working at a bar. Living in a house with nothing on the walls and hardly any pictures of family. What happened to you?"

"This is the real world, Jareth. Not everyone can cling on to their dreams. Sometimes that rope just breaks, and there's nothing left to grasp at, so you have to make a living with what you're given."

He narrowed his eyes. "If you had entered the Labyrinth with that attitude, you would have certainly lost. Whatever happened to your acting aspirations?"

Sarah huffed, feeling the old sting of tears rise up against the back of her eyes. "I tried, alright? I wasn't good enough."

"So you gave up."

"I did what I had to do. I couldn't afford to keep trying."

She had tried to get into an arts school, had auditioned for all she was worth, memorizing scripts and walking onto several different stages. But in the end, there had always been someone who was better, and she would miss the cutoff. Her window of opportunity for gaining acceptance into college had been slowly closing, and she had had to move on with her life.

"So you went from aspiring to be famous to working in some rundown bar in New York? How disappointing."

That stung, and Sarah bit her lip angrily. "I don't have anything left to say on that subject."

To her surprise, Jareth bowed his head in respect to her wishes and fell silent.

"That can't be the only reason."

He lifted his head again, his candyfloss hair falling into his eyes. "He was also very curious on he came to be in your care."

"Oh. _Oh_…" Sarah straightened up. "Some kid brought him into the pet store while I was working-"

"A pet store, too? How admirable."

"Do you want to know or don't you?" Sarah snapped, who was growing rather annoyed with his snide comments about her choice of work.

"Forgive me."

_Not bloody likely._

"Anyways, he was brought in by this kid who was kind of weird."

"How so?"

"Like…when he walked in the door, all the animals went quiet, except for the snakes. He seemed to be afraid of them."

Jareth leaned forward. "He was afraid? What were these snakes doing?"

"Hissing, spitting, they were all riled up over him being there, like he was an enemy."

"That's because he was."

"Excuse me?"

"You are familiar with how Anlach and I can change into owls, correct?" Sarah nodded. "I am certain that this person who you met was a fae, and if he was, his other form was most likely a mongoose."

Sarah found herself confused. "Why a mongoose?"

"They are the natural enemies of snakes."

"I thought that was just with cobras."

Jareth shook his head. "People often make a show out of a mongoose fighting with a cobra because that is the most exciting form of entertainment. But really, a mongoose is capable of killing any snake that is of a reasonable size."

"What makes you so sure he was a fae?"

Jareth turned serious. "As with every monarchy in the world, both above and below, we have enemies who do not quite agree with our policies. There are those who would love to see us dead. I cannot believe that someone just happened to find my brother's body in a random alley."

Sarah saw the sense in that. "But why would he be brought to me? Wouldn't it have been more sensible just to leave him in a dumpster somewhere?"

Jareth smiled. "Well, what did you do when you got him?

"I put him-" _in a cage, _her mind finished silently.

"Exactly. You didn't know any better. In fact, had you not put your sweatshirt on the cage floor, Anlach probably would have died. And by giving him to you, most would assume that you had put him in the cage of your own will. The blame would have been lifted off their shoulders, and they would be free to make another attempt on someone's life."

"Alright, but who is they? I know they're enemies, obviously, but do they belong to a certain group?"

Jareth looked away. "If I knew that, I wouldn't be sitting here right now."

His hands tightened, and Sarah realized what he was saying. It was then she knew how deep the brotherly affection ran; for all their constant digging into each other, they really were a family. If Jareth knew who these people were, she believed without a doubt that he would be after them in a heartbeat to make them pay for hurting his brother. She felt her heart soften, just that much.

The kitchen door swung open, and Paul stepped out. "Hey, I told ya not to wait up, Sarah. And we're closed, by the way," he added to Jareth before walking jauntily towards the door. "Since you're still here, would you mind locking the front door?"

"Of course not," Sarah responded lightly. Paul threw her a crooked smile before bouncing out the door.

Paul's sudden entry had broken the mood, and Jareth rose to his feet. "You should leave now, before it gets too late." It would probably be useless to protest, so she didn't.

Sarah walked around the bar and opened the little door that allowed her to enter the main floor. She reached for the switch that controlled the lights and turned it off, plunging them both into darkness, save for the pale glow of the streetlights outside, and the catlike glitter of Jareth's eyes.

Sarah walked out the door, pausing to hold it open for Jareth, who stepped outside with a nod of his head. She locked it behind them and tugged on the handle, just to be sure that it was securely closed. When she was satisfied, she turned to her car, the last one in the parking lot, as Paul had already left.

When she opened her door, a hand on the frame stopped her. She looked up to see Jareth standing there, looked down at her. This close, she could see that he still wore that odd pendant around his neck; it had falling out of its place inside his shirt. She could also see every hair that fell in his face, and could probably count his eyelashes if she wanted to; point being, he was far too close for her liking. His magic crackled around her, brushing against her skin and vanishing into the night.

"Would you like me to escort you home?"

_Yes, yes, I would indeed like that very much. And then maybe you could come inside and stay for a while…_

"No." Her own steadiness surprised her, but gave her the confidence she needed. "Not tonight."

Jareth arched an eyebrow at that. "Then are you leaving an opportunity for some other night?"

Sarah shrugged. "Maybe. Will there be any more surprise visits from Anlach?"

Jareth rolled his eyes. "That lunatic does whatever he wants, but now that I know what he wanted to find out, probably not."

A stab of disappointment hit her; for all his downfalls, Anlach was rather fun to be around. "I suppose he does have a kingdom to run."

"Ha, as if he ever actually runs it."

"And what about you?"

The humorless smile slid off his face. "What about me?"

"Will there be any more surprise visits from you?"

He shrugged, mirroring her earlier response. "Maybe."

Sarah smiled. That would have to be enough.

* * *

**Haha! Hell yeah, another chapter, the longest one I've ever created. Time goes by so fast when you're writing, you know that? I must have sat here for about three hours for the last half of this, and I didn't even realize it. The beginning of this chapter was kind of boring, I know, but I needed to establish the setting of Sarah's second job. But I tried to make up for it with six pages of Sarah/Jareth interaction.**

**Satan'sPixie – I took the names from two fictional characters in a book, but that book was based in Scotland, so while I can't affirm that you are correct, you most likely are **


	4. The Northern Kingdom

Sunrise in the Northern Kingdoms has a harsh, ethereal beauty to it. It contains the magic that only the Underground can weave, but the sun on the everlasting snow stung the eyes and made such spectacles hard to watch. But Jareth watched it, sitting across from Anlach in his office, sipping brandy and waiting for his brother to speak, at the same time bracing himself for whatever dramatics were to come.

Anlach's office was pristine and perfect, a drastic contrast to Jareth's own. The order of the place was most likely due to his competent servants rather than the lord himself, as Anlach was usually never around, something that his family frowned upon. But Anlach had acquired his own rebellious streak, longer and wider and nastier than even Jareth's, and could rarely be subdued by a slap on the wrist.

Jareth had been restlessly pacing the towers of his castle after returning to the Underground when he had received Anlach's invitation to his home just before dawn. Though he was tired, he was pleased with the distraction, and had hastened to the north as quickly as he could. He found himself confused by the recent events, and anything to take his mind off of whatever mess he was in now was certainly welcome, even if it meant he had to console and oversee his older brother.

As Anlach pretended to read a treaty (that already had his signature on it), Jareth pondered about the past. Anlach used to be his guardian and his mentor. He wondered when all of that had turned around, when the older brother had to be taught by the younger.

* * *

_"Jareth, what are you doing?"_

_A young boy was crouched in the uppermost branches of an oak tree, leggings scraped and boots scuffed, his shoulder-length mass of blond hair looking more like a bush with all the leaves and twigs it had collected. Below him stood a pale figure dressed in white, his long, platinum hair tied behind him in a thick braid that reached down to his lower back. The boy in the tree couldn't have been older than eight or nine years by human standards, while this other person standing on the ground looked to be in his late teens._

_"I thought if I wen' up inna tree, it would help me change into a bird." His voice had a youthful, country slur to it, something that his very refined parents had been trying to break him of for the past few years._

_The pale boy sighed. "Jar, mum and da would have a fit if they saw you climbing in your clothes."_

_Jareth huffed indignantly. "Mum and da throw a fit if I do anything, Anlach."_

_Anlach raised an eyebrow. "You don't do much to endear yourself to them."_

_"I dunno what that means," was his reply, along with a stuck-out tongue._

_"Come down, and I'll tell you."_

_"No."_

_"Why ever not? You won't be able to successfully change shape until you get older. Sitting here is pointless."_

_"I can't…I can't get back down. I been sittin' here for hours now."_

_Anlach pursed his lips in a haughty manner. "What you meant was "I've been sitting". Grammar."_

_Jareth rolled his eyes. "Whatever."_

_Anlach strolled languidly around the base of the tree. He supposed he could climb up and drag him back down, but he wasn't really feeling like pulling branches out of his hair for the next week. "If you got up there, then you can come back down."_

_Jareth folded his arms, petulant child that he was. "I tried."_

_Anlach stepped back and craned his head to stare through the branches where his little brother was perched, glowering down at him. "Try harder, then."_

_The boy dropped his defense and wailed. "I can't!" His pale odd eyes were wide as he clung to the tree trunk. "I'm frightened I'll slip."_

_His older brother sighed. "Jump then."_

_"Huh?"_

_He spread out his arms. "I'll catch you."_

_Anlach had never lied to him before. He had never misled him or went behind his back or snitched on him to their parents whenever he did something bad, so Jareth had no reason to think that he would come to harm. And so he jumped._

_Both boys toppled to the ground, Anlach's arms wrapped firmly around his brother's smaller frame. When they were at rest in the grass, Anlach pushed Jareth off of him, panting frantically as he straightened up to tower over him. "What the hell was that?"_

_Jareth blinked up at him owlishly. "You tol' me to jump. So I did."_

_Anlach made a show of straightening out his clothes so Jareth wouldn't see his shaking hands. "I wasn't exactly serious when I said that. You going to be the death of me, kid."_

_Jareth wriggled up to his feet, not bothering to brush himself off like his more pristine brother, instead more content to let himself remain dirty. "Sorry?"_

_The white-haired boy sighed and stretched out his hand. "Never you mind. Now come on, I'll take you to get cleaned up. It wouldn't do for you to be caught out here looking like this."_

_His brother grinned and threaded his hand with Anlach's without a moment's hesitation, and the older boy led him off the grounds and into the castle._

* * *

_Anlach sat at a table in a bar, the hood of his cloak pulled up over his eyes, his hands clasped in front of him. He believed he was far enough from the kingdom to avoid being recognized, but he wasn't taking any chances; if he was seen here, word would go back to his parents faster than a wildfire, and he would probably spend the next month being strung up from the ceiling by his ankles for doing something so mundane as setting foot in a common bar._

_Another hooded figure plopped down across him, the mismatched eyes glowing out of the shadows of his hood._

_"Thanks for coming, Jar."_

_"Of course," his brother responded smoothly, waving away the waitress who had tentatively begun to creep forward for their orders. She looked slightly annoyed (it was, after all, bad manners to enter a place like this without eating or drinking anything), but she backed off with a respectful dip of her head. "So why all the sneaking about?"_

_Anlach smirked. What Jareth really meant was 'why the hell are you making me duck around in these shadowy places?'. "I think I'm in 'love'."_

_The figure across from him failed to catch the sarcastic lilt to his voice and straightened immediately and leaned forward. "With whom?"_

_"The daughter of the Woodland King, Insidia."_

_Jareth flinched back, surprised. "That traitor?"_

_"Shh," Anlach responded sharply, glancing around them cautiously. "Do try to keep your voice down."_

_But Jareth would not be silent, not over a matter such as this. What the hell could his brother be thinking, pulling some trick like this? It was downright insane, and he wouldn't let him do this without making some sort of protest. "Anlach, think for a moment. Insidia is the daughter of a King who has, on numerous occasions, attempted to orchestrate uprisings against the North. Such an alliance would be disastrous."_

_He was leveled with a cool glare. "I have my own motives for selecting her, motives that I did not see fit to include you in since I knew that you would react with your typical brash statements."_

_The other man growled. "My brash statements have never crippled the Kingdom before. But should you chase after this woman, I fear for the safety of the people."_

_Anlach had no comment, and a tense silence settled over the pair, permeated only by the quiet murmurings of the other people in the bar. Jareth sighed, willing to catalogue this information in his mind for later use if that meant he could wring more answers from his slippery brother now._

_"When did this happen?"_

_His older brother rubbed his eyes, suddenly looking very weary. "Jareth…You wouldn't know, because Uncle has been taking you to his kingdom to introduce you into their society-"_

_"Society," Jareth cut off with an uncharacteristic snarl in his voice. "I hardly believe that those foul creatures conform to any society."_

_Anlach cut him off with a sharp gaze, and Jareth automatically fell silent. It was a look he was accustomed to from his youth, and though he hadn't been on the receiving end of it in the past few years, it was still enough to render him speechless. "Goblins may be despicable, unsightly creatures, Jareth, but if anything Uncle says is true, they are loyal and devoted to their King. Anyways, as I was saying, Mother and Father are desperate for me to find a wife."_

_Jareth arched an eyebrow. "So soon?"_

_"They are losing favor with the court and with their people for refusing to act on the disturbances to the south. They are afraid that our family will be overthrown."_

_"And so they should be," Jareth interrupted dryly. "If I were not their son, I would be joining those screaming crowds as well."_

_Anlach sighed. "Do not be so judgmental, brother. To openly declare war on the Dark Sidhe, even if they are deserving of it, would devastate the Kingdom. We haven't the proper army now to fight them. Now, stop interrupting."_

_"Mmm."_

_"They want me to take control as quickly as possible; I am more popular with the court than they are at the moment, and the news of a new Lord of the North will temporarily draw the court's attention from the battles in the south." He began to curl a lock of his pristine hair around a long finger. "In order for me to ascend, I need a wife. I would prefer it to be someone beautiful."_

_Jareth scoffed. "So shallow, brother."_

_"And what would you have me do? Marry someone I loved?" His brother sneered sarcastically. "Pull your big head out of those clouds you're so fond of living in, Jareth. We're politicians and aristocrats. There is no woman capable of loving people like us."_

_"I never said there was," Jareth snapped back, struggling to keep his voice down, "but there's a difference in marrying for beauty and marrying for benefits. There is no potential alliance between the North and the Woodlands."_

_But Anlach was shaking his head. "I'm not going to bow to anyone's decree on this. If they are forcing me to wed, then so be it, but I will not allow them to hold my hand and pick out a suitable companion for me."_

_"And Insidia qualifies as a suitable companion?"_

_"Hardly. But as you pointed out before, she comes from a very dangerous family. Our union would…keep her under my hand, so to speak."_

_Jareth's face lost some of its disdain, which was replaced by a glimmer of understanding. "You want to keep an eye on her."_

_His companion bobbed his head affirmatively. "Having her at my side would make for a most unpleasant personal life, but as far as appearances go, we would make an attractive couple, and the court, of course, would lap it all up." He began imitating their speech: "How noble of you to move past such trivial differences, Lord Anlach, you are far more mature than we previously believed you to be."_

_Jareth snorted. "How willing do you think her father would be?"_

_"More than enough. To have an insider in the North, let alone someone who is wedded to the Lord, would probably fulfill all of his greatest fantasies."_

_"Do you think you can handle such a relationship?" Now that his annoyance was ebbing away, Jareth was beginning to feel a bit of fear for the gamble that Anlach was taking. "It will not be easy by any means."_

_Anlach laughed loudly, making some of the other customers look about in mild alarm. "We are the children of the most devious, plotting pair in the entire Underground, brother. Nothing is ever easy, but that is what makes us stronger in the end."_

* * *

And now here they were, sitting opposite of each other, mirroring the bar situation that had happened over a century ago. Anlach was still fiddling absentminded with his trivial parchment, and Jareth was suddenly seized with the urge to rip it out of his hands and force him speak. But that would be ridiculously rude, so instead he resigned himself to make the opening statement, seeing as how his brother didn't seem to be doing so any time soon.

"So what summons me here on this fine morning?" He questioned smoothly, setting his empty glass on the surface of the polished desk.

His voice combined with the chink of glass on wood made Anlach look up. He set the treaty aside, playing with his long fingers instead. Jareth found himself beginning to get annoyed with his beating around the bush and gave him and irritated glance.

Anlach responded with an apologetic smile that seemed out of place on his weary face. Upon a swift, closer inspection, Jareth observed that his skin looked a bit paler than usual and there were dim shadows under his eyes; Anlach had always had very fair skin, and even one restless, stressful night would be enough to make him take on an ill appearance. His eyes shrank into cat-like slits.

"Did you sleep with that mortal woman?"

At the mention of Emmaline, Anlach shifted in his chair. Just barely, but Jareth's owl-eyes caught the movement. The Goblin King pursed his lips disdainfully.

"Yes."

It was amusing, really, how his voice still had that aristocratic air to it, even though its owner looked like he had just crawled through his own personal hell and back.

_Well? Is that it? _"And?"

"I didn't want to leave her."

Oh. Well that was certainly a surprising revelation; Anlach was usually gone right after the act, leaving nothing behind except maybe a few snowy white feathers and a wailing bundle of joy (though the latter wouldn't appear until nine months into the future). He was selfish and narcissistic, not compassionate or romantic. He knew how to please women, and that was about as far as his knowledge of them went.

Jareth frowned. "What brought this on?" Though he was genuinely interested, he was also skeptical; though Anlach had never seemed so worked up over a woman before with the exception of…_that_ night…he did have a new love interest every day of the week, fickle as he was. Not to mention that if he carelessly broke the girl's heart, Jareth would have a very pissed Sarah snapping at his heels, which was something that, while not necessary fear-inducing, might prove to be tiresome.

Anlach twisted three stands of his hair into a thin braid, and though he was looking at Jareth, his eyes had a faraway, glassy look to them, and Jareth knew that he wasn't really seeing what was in front of him. "I don't know," he muttered quietly, running one of his fingers through the braid to undo it, only to start twining it back together again once it came unraveled. "She was crying, at that place."

"I know." Jareth waved one lazy hand over his empty glass so it was full again, and took another small taste. The alcohol was strong, and it set his throat on fire, but he liked it. Because if he could deal with the mild discomfort now, he would be left with a pleasant buzz later. Rather like how he felt when…no, no, no mention of that now. "I was there, if you remember."

Anlach was brought back down to earth at Jareth's annoyed tone. "What's wrong with you?"

"What's wrong?" The fire burned its way down to his chest now, but he set down the empty glass with an eerie calm. "You are the esteemed Lord of the North, respected and admired by all who come in contact with you. And yet when I feel that you are in danger, I find that you are simply engaged in a simple barfight in an establishment far beneath our notice." He had been almost frantic, fearing that Anlach had repeated what had happened last time and was dying somewhere of iron poisoning. When he used his crystal to find his brother, he had been relieved to discover that it was not poisoning at all; if that had been the case, his crystal would have been clouded, and would not have yielded Anlach's location. But what he did see intrigued him; his proud, regal brother coming to the defense of a mortal. And he had seen Sarah as well, watching with a curious, fearful gaze. It had seemed to out of the ordinary to pass off as coincidence, and so he had gone Above too.

His older brother sniffed haughtily. "I assure you, there was no danger. The beast was naught but a common troll."

Jareth gave a toss of his head. "That's not what I saw."

"Enlighten me."

"Could you not sense it," the younger of the brothers asked softly, "that underneath that mortal skin was something much darker? His aura was practically spilling out the bar, and when he walked past me, I thought I would be stifled!"

Anlach frowned. "Black auras are the mark of the Dark Sidhe, Jareth. Even the weaker ones have them, it is nothing to be worried by."

Jareth shook his head. "This was definitely something, Anlach. You disappear in the fringes of New York City for three days, and you have the nerve to go back there when someone tried to take your life! This is not something to overlook, brother."

Anlach ignored Jareth's warning and resumed playing with his own hair. "So someone did try to kill me, then? Is that what the girl told you?" He sounded bored and uninterested in his own death, but they way his shoulders stiffened when he spoke betrayed his underlying anxiety.

"Sarah knows nothing about it, but she says that you were given to her by a mysterious boy who apparently had bad relations with snakes."

The hands stilled, and Anlach raised his eyebrows. "A mongoose?"

"I am certain of it."

"Such bad-mannered, foul-tempered rodents, mongooses are," Anlach sighed, dropping his hands to his desk and folding them serenely. His hair straightened back out slowly, as if it had never been touched. "Now, which one of those mammals do we know would see me dead?"

A mirthless chuckle. "Adunyoka, for one."

Anlach smiled. "Ahh, I must say I forgot about him. But I would think that that quarrel is long past, wouldn't you? Father did concede the disputed land to his Clan when he was still the Lord of the North. I thought that would have settled it."

"True, but he and his band of loyalists have never quite seen eye to eye with our family. They probably noticed that our opposition has been swelling recently, and threw their money in with the Dark Sidhe."

The Fae grinned in a nasty way, his cold blue eyes turning flinty. "A mistake if there ever was one."

Jareth cast him a devious look, but did not respond in like fashion. Instead, he switched back over to the topic their conversation had started out on. "So, about this mortal girl…"

Anlack gave him a sly smirk. "Stuck on mortal girls are we? Which one are we talking about?"

The Goblin King wrinkled his nose snobbishly. "Hush. You were looking so atypically surly when I came in earlier, I can only assume it has something to do with your newest bird."

"Hn. You assume correctly." Anlach frowned. "She felt so warm."

"When? After the actual sex, or while you were still-"

"_Jareth."_

The blond laughed and cocked his head to the side. "She must have really done something to you, brother. You're usually not so prudish about your sexual conquests." It was true; Anlach wasn't ever shy about his sex life, and his irritating conversations often left…interesting images lingering in Jareth's mind that he'd rather not be having about his own brother. "So did she sweep you off your feet or what?"

Anlach's long fingers tapped out a rhythm on the top of his desk. "She's different. She has beauty, but she doesn't slither around like a poisonous serpent."

"I thought you liked the poisonous serpents."

"They're certainly more…forward," Anlach admitted sneakily with a wry smirk. "I always assumed I would never want to be with an innocent little airhead. But it certainly has its quirks."

"I find myself confused. Are you addicted to the girl, or her body?"

"Both, I think. You can't have one without the other, after all," Anlach quipped cheerily, pulling out a stack of papers at random and reading through them quickly.

Jareth blinked. "So what got you so upset over it, then?"

Anlach shrugged briefly, adding his majestic signature to the bottom of a page before licking his thumb and flipping to the next. "I'd prefer not to get too attached. Mum and Da would never approve anyways."

"Yeah, like you've ever let something like our parents get in your way."

"Give me a rest, I'm looking for excuses."

He arched an eyebrow. "You're looking for an excuse to be upset?"

The Northern Lord tossed the completed documents to the other side of his desk and reached for another. Before reading through it, he raised his eyes to Jareth's, and to Jareth's surprise, they were surprisingly deep with thought. "I never pay a visit twice…I think I may miss her."

_Ahh, so a new light has touched your life the same way one touched mine. Now you may understand my reluctance to let it go. _Had he just thought that? He examined his brother closely - despite his sober words, there was a merry light in his eyes that was typically absent; though Anlach was pleasant and clever, he was never usually truly happy. And he was actually doing work for his kingdom for once…Jareth straightened. Mortals had a philosophy, right? Happiness leads to a better work ethic?

He leaned forward eagerly. "I think you should see her again." So maybe he was using her to make his brother happy. As long as Sarah never found out, it wouldn't be too much of a risk to his life.

Anlach looked surprised, and glanced at the large stack of proposed laws and requests awaiting his attention and approval. "I would have thought that you would certainly object to any sort of other…obligation."

"Look at you. You're doing work. You're getting something accomplished." Jareth flinched at how he sounded – like a parent praising a small child for saying "please" and "thank you". Anlach picked up on his tone and stuck out his tongue childishly.

"And this girl helped with that?"

"Whatever she did has apparently made you happy."

"Ah, so you wish for me to use her to get you out of taking care of my kingdom?"

"In a sense, yes."

His brother snorted in disbelief. "You could at least have the decency to lie."

Jareth smirked. "You use women all the time. I fail to see how this is different."

Anlach flushed in irritation. "I use the meaningless women. This girl is different."

"So she's different? What, has the great Lord been overcome by a simple crush?"

"Me? What of you?" Anlach swung the conversation on its head. "What did you and your little mouse do last night?"

"We talked. Briefly." Jareth bit out, annoyed to have the subject at hand turned against him. He really didn't feel like talking about Sarah at the moment, because he had no idea what to say about it. She was somewhere between friend and foe…that dangerous gray area where dangerous things happened.

The ruler opposite of him grinned like a maniac. "Don't try to sell me that shit. You want me to keep on seeing her friend so you can tag along and _accidentally_ run into her." He began laughing. "Maybe we could go on a "double date"."

Jareth, who despised being laughed at, bristled. "Fine, then. Go back to being a pathetic, miserable fool." He rose quickly from his seat and summoned one of his crystals, fully intending to leave. Anlach covered his mouth to stifle his laughter.

"Come now, brother. Do not be so immature." He waved his hand towards Jareth's vacated chair. "Sit back down."

Jareth stubbornly remained standing.

"Oh, very well then, you spoilt boy. I'll indulge you." Anlach scrawled another one of his loopy signatures on a document and set it aside. "However, I am confused on how to go about using her. I am not made to go Aboveground for extended periods of time like you."

"You never seem to have a problem with it when you go up for those "visits" of yours."

"That's only for a night. I keep most of my activities closer to home than that."

"Unfortunately," Jareth drawled in response, running his fingers through his hair. Hmm…how to deal with this? Frequent visits Aboveground would result in a slow onset of iron poisoning from all the exposure. Jareth himself had built up an immunity to it from doing his duty of collecting children from those who had wished them away, but Anlach's visits were few and far between; there were plenty of beautiful women Underground for him to choose from, after all. Then, an idea came to him, and a slow, languid smile stretched over his face. Oh, Sarah was _not_ going to like this one.

"Then why don't you bring her down here?"

* * *

"Hoggle, what can you tell me about the Dark Sidhe?"

"I can tell ya a lot, but what are ya doin' messin' 'round with that sort?"

When Sarah had woken up that morning, she had immediately pulled out her mirror from where she kept it under her bed. Ever since she was fifteen, she had been using it to communicate with her friends back in the Labyrinth, and when she had moved out, she had taken the mirror with her, knowing her friends would take it personally if she broke off contact with them. College had been tricky; many times, she would have to hold her phone up to her ear while she talked to Hoggle and Didymus to pretend she was talking to someone on the other line, as her roommate wasn't very fond of knocking before opening the door. Those four years at the university had been interesting indeed.

When she moved into her apartment, she still had the mirror. Some might have viewed it as childish, to cling on to such old memories like a lifeline, but Sarah couldn't bring herself to leave the mirror behind anywhere or to throw it away. The Labyrinth had changed her, shaped her into a more docile, mature person. Hoggle, Didymus, and Ludo had helped her on that journey, and she was loathe to leave them all behind. She still cared about them. They were her friends, and friends didn't just leave each other behind.

So here she was, sitting cross-legged in her pajamas on a spring morning, chatting nonchalantly with a three foot dwarf on the other side of the mirror. Apparently, Didymus had been called in by Jareth to take care of the castle for the morning, which would explain the little fox's absence. Sarah found that rather amusing; Jareth hadn't seemed overly fond of her friends when she had run through his maze, and the fact that he was employing one of them to oversee the going-ons of the morning struck her as ironic. She also had to wonder where he was going at such an early hour; were children unwittingly still wishing away their little brothers and sisters? Or was he just out for a morning stroll?

Thinking of Jareth made her think about Anlach, which made her worry about Emmaline. Sarah wasn't sure why she trusted Anlach not to hurt her. He was virtually a stranger, but he had that honorable nature about him that made her think that he wouldn't ever do anything questionable or harmful to someone innocent. If Em hadn't called her by…10:00am, then she would drive over to her house to check up on her. She just hoped that she wouldn't catch them in a…compromising position.

"I'm not messing around with them, Hoggle, I just want to know."

The dwarf looking suspicious. "How'dya find out 'bout the Dark Sidhe, anyhow?"

Sarah shifted. "A book."

"Liar."

"The internet?"

"'Wos that?"

"Nevermind." Sarah glanced around furtively, though of course she was alone in her room. Unless you counted Kobold, who was sprawled out lazily on one of her pillows. She spared him a tiny scowl before turning back to the mirror. "Do you know who Anlach is?

To her amazement, Hoggle grinned. "Oh yeah, I know 'im alright. Not very fond 'o me, he isn't."

She gave him a dubious look. "You know him personally?"

Hoggle shrugged. "More 'o less. He don't share much 'o his life's details with me, no, but we've met several times. I like ta annoy 'im. He looks down on all the ugly beasts, ya see."

"Oh, Hoggle, I don't think you're ugly." She was surprised at how true that statement was; over the past ten years, the odd appearances of her friends had ceased to be grotesque, and had become somewhat…normal to her.

At her comment, he looked down and rubbed his head shyly. Sarah couldn't help but grin. For all the cowardly things he had done in the Labyrinth, he held a sort of innocence in his own right. She pressed on. "So you've met with him a lot, then?"

"Yup. Speakin' 'o which, how do _you_ know of 'im?"

"Er, he kinda paid me a surprise visit one night."

Hoggle began to look rather angry. "Paid ya a visit, did he? Did he hurt ya, Sarah?"

The young woman felt her cheeks begin to warm with embarrassment at the dawrf's suggestion. "Oh, no, it wasn't _that_ sort of visit," she amended hastily. "Honestly…it was kind of an accident that we even met each other."

Hoggle immediately relaxed, though still looked a bit puzzled. With a quiet sigh, Sarah decided to just go ahead and tell the entire story. Hoggle listened patiently through all of it until she finally concluded with what Jareth had said to her last night. She skipped the bit when Jareth said her name, not sure if she would be able to keep her voice from trembling. By the time she was done, Hoggle was nodding wisely.

"The whole Labyrinth was inna uproar when Anlach was discovered missin'," He muttered. "I never seen Jareth so upset, not even after ya beat 'is game."

Sarah blinked, feeling surprise shoot through her. "He must care very deeply for his brother, then."

Hoggle nodded again. "The blood in that family runs deep. Jareth would prob'ly cut off 'is own arm if it meant savin' the life 'o his brothers." The slamming of a door on the other side of the mirror made Hoggle turn around. Didymus bounded in, as crazy as usual, his loyal steed trotting in behind him. He turned toward the mirror, delighted to see Sarah there watching him back with a smile on her face.

"My fair maiden!" He shouted, bowing so low his nose practically brushed the floor. "This devoted knight would be glad to speak with you, but I must return to my post at the castle."

"So Jareth hasn't returned yet?" Hoggle asked grumpily, annoyed with the fox's chipper attitude at such an early hour.

"I daresay he has, my brother," Didymus corrected him merrily, Hoggle's sour attitude flying completely over his little head. "But the King looked dreadfully weary, and so I will return to the castle to oversee the throne until he is rested."

Sarah tensed at the knight's words. Jareth, weary? Somehow, those were two words she never thought would fit together in a sentence. She felt a twinge in her stomach, and it took her a moment to identify it as worry. She gave herself a mental shake in disgust, and her thoughts turned to the Goblin King's brother. She glanced at her digital clock. 9:13 AM. She still had another half-hour before she would drive to Em's house to see what was up. Before Didymus could leave, she stopped him.

"Sir Didymus!" The fox paused, halfway out the door, to look back at her with his good eye. "Please send the King my sympathies at his state of unrest…and ask him about that surprise visit."

The knight looked horribly confused, but he nodded his head enthusiastically, and with a final wave of his paw, he was gone. Hoggle turned to Sarah with a confused expression on his face.

"What was that all about?"

* * *

When Sarah sprang up the steps to Emmaline's house, it was a little past ten. She eyed the cozy little home with a fraction of jealousy; Em's parents had bought it for her, apparently, after she graduated college. Sarah tried to imagine her parents doing that for her and almost laughed out loud. It wasn't as if they were cruel, they just firmly supported the notion of "tough love".

While Em's home wasn't grand by any means, it had the personal touch to it that Sarah envied. It was a bleach white, accented with pale blue trim, giving the house an airy, cloudy sort of look. There was a potted plant filled with daisies taking up half her front porch, and Sarah paused a moment to admire their beauty, the bright yellow of their petals standing out against the plain white wood of the porch floor. With a smile, the raven-haired woman shook her head, crossing over to her friend's front door.

She had learned quite a lot about the Dark Sidhe from Hoggle before she had left. Of course, she had had to break him off of the topic of Jareth; he had been curious about why Sarah would offer him her sympathy. Sarah had playfully told him to bugger off, and he had pretended to be angry, until a minute later, when she had asked him about the Dark Sidhe again. Hoggle, ever eager to please anyone who would listen with his surprisingly vast knowledge of history, had quickly launched into several descriptions about various different dark creatures.

They were trolls, leprechauns, demons and other creatures of shadow, who had chosen evil over goodness at the beginning of time, and taught their wicked, sinful ways to their children. At least, that was how Hoggle had poetically put it. He had also cautioned her about other Clans of beings that weren't necessarily Dark, but were still considered dangerous. He reeled off about half a dozen, among those the faeries and the goblins. Sarah hadn't believed the latter. She had, after all, seen the goblins in Jareth's city. They were malicious fellows, but not particularly smart of dangerous.

"That's 'cause they're just people, en't they?" Hoggle had reminded her gently. "Them goblins are really just humans who was caught up in the Labyrinth, and it changed them. Trust me, Sarah, real goblins are a force to be reckoned with."

Sarah was curious. "Why does the Labyrinth change them, Hoggle?"

He had shrugged at her. "Unless they're protected by powerful magic, humans don't last long in the Underground. Your kind live like fire – burnin' hot n' violent for a while, but can be snuffed out at any time. Underground, you's immortal, and can't support that kinda life anymore."

"Anlach seems pretty crazy to me."

"He was born into it, o' course he can be wild. Humans is so used to only having so long to live, they're reckless and stupid. The Underground changes 'em to make 'em impervious ta all the dangers here. So that way if they get inna any danger that would kill 'em as humans, they survive 'cause of all the changes the Underground wrought on them.

"So, those changes save their lives?"

"Exactly."

He had also been stuck on two particular individuals. One of them was a woodland princess by the name of Insidia, and Hoggle had spoken of her with a particularly venomous tone. Apparently, she and Anlach had wed about a century before, but had not been married long before things began to go awry.

"I dunno exactly what happened with 'em," Hoggle had admitted. "There's a lotta mystery there, and only the family knows what happened. All I knows is that there was some sorta betrayal, and then that girl wasn't ever seen again. And after all that, that's when Lord Anlach started to get really…off-the-wall."

"He wasn't always like that?" Well, that was surprising.

Hoggle had chuckled. "There was a time when Anlach was the prim n' proper one of the family, an' his only blemishes were his activities with women, which always amused Jareth and Brechin to no end. But after this…he got careless and grew more n' more promiscuous, but at the same time, he was growin' colder an' colder."

Sarah thought about Anlach's bright eyes and carefree grin, and found it hard to believe that underneath all that, he was really an unhappy person, but didn't press the issue, because she wanted to know more.

The other one was a lesser ruler named Adunyoka, who's other form, like the young man in the pet store, was a mongoose. He was a rebellious, bloodthirsty lord of a tiny Kingdom in the northeast, who was constantly at odds with the North. His motives had been pure at first, Hoggle had admitted reluctantly; the Dark Sidhe were a constant threat to his people, and he was infuriated with Anlach's lack of open hostility towards them, and made his displeasure widely known. But when the Northern Lord continued to deny him, his hatred grew until he turned to his enemy to remove him from a position of power.

"But why doesn't Anlach just completely remove him?" Sarah had asked, curious as to how the powerful Fae couldn't just snuff out his life.

"That'd be a very dangerous move on 'is part, Sarah," Hoggle responded gravely. "So far, they haven't been able to prove the slippery rat's at the bottom of all these uprisings that've been staged. Killin' him would jus' bring confusion and anger down on his shoulders." He looked around in an almost conspiratorial manner. "'sides, by this time, Adunyoka's probably in way too deep with the Dark Lords. Killin' him would be an excuse for 'em to attack."

Why were politics so complex?

When Sarah had looked up to see that it was already ten, she had bid Hoggle a hasty farewell and rushed out to her car to drive the short distance to Emmaline's house and see exactly what had gone on the night before (well…maybe she could do without all the details.).

She raised her hand to knock on the door, but it swung open before she could. Sarah braced herself for tears and sniffing, but to her surprised, it was a very cheery girl, still dressed in her pajamas, that opened the door. Emmaline grinned at Sarah from ear to ear before beckoning her inside her home with a wave of her arm. Bewildered, Sarah followed her.

Em flopped down on her couch in the living room, still smiling that particular smile. Sarah, instead of sitting in the small armchair on the other side of the room, chose to sit in front of her friend on the carpet, folding her legs underneath her on the floor.

"So?"

The redhead looked up. "Oh Sarah, last night was amazing."

Sarah felt her face grow hot. "I'm sure it was…"

"He was so kind, he's not like anyone else that I've ever met before at all! Everything about him was so perfect and beautiful, it was like he wasn't even human." Her eyes glassed over in a glazed expression that made Sarah uneasy.

"So you don't mind that he used you and left you?" Sarah growled hotly, wondering what had come over her friend in the span of a single night.

That wiped the dreamy expression off of her face, and for a moment, Emmaline looked a bit downcast. "How did you know?"

"He seemed the type," she retorted coolly. She wondered what kind of bewitchment Anlach held over her head to make Emmaline completely head over heels for him. Though Sarah was more reserved when it came to men, Em was no stranger to one-night stands. She was pretty and clever, despite her airy personality, and was bouncy enough to have flippant wild nights with no strings attached. She was a master at keeping sex and emotions separate, so to see her so…affected was disturbing.

Emmaline sighed. "Willy, I dunno what's come over – oh!" She had leaned sideways to rest her elbow on the table next to the couch, but now she wrenched back like she had been burned. Something had appeared there that Sarah was certain had not been there before. She got up on her knees and shuffled over to look at whatever it was, and Em, who was rubbing her arm, leaned forward curiously.

There was a piece of parchment, rolled into a neat scroll. It wasn't tied, and Sarah picked it up wearily, flipping it around to see how it was held together. Along the seam, she saw there was an elaborate wax seal holding the edges together, and she raised it up to her eyes to examine it while Emmaline reached for the other two objects that were lying on the table.

The wax was the color of a cold winter sky; pale, harsh blue. In the center was the silhouette of some great bird with its wings outstretched. It was holding something in its feet, though the seal was too small for Sarah to make it out clearly. And emblazoned over the entire thing was a shining, ostentatious "A".

"Sarah, look at this!" Em's excited squeal cut across the churning wheels in Sarah's mind as she glowered at what was obviously Anlach's personal seal. She frowned and looked up at Emmaline, who looked both confused and excited. In one hand, she held a large, pure white feather, and in the other was a long pale chain. It looked like a necklace, but half of it was clenched in Em's fist, so she couldn't be sure.

"Let me see that," Sarah demanded, stretching out her hand. Em handed over the chain without much protest, but continued to twirl the feather between her fingers with an awed expression. The minute it touched Sarah's skin, she flinched; it was freezing to the touch, and she could see why it had startled Em when she had accidently leaned on it.

"I think it's made of ice," Emmaline whispered, watched it with wide eyes. As Sarah examined it, she could see the sense in that. Not only was it cold, it was smooth and slippery, and was far too clear to be anything else. The chain was fine and light, and attached to the end of it was a single snowflake. How sentimental.

"Who knows what it is. This," she added, extending the scroll to her friend, "is for you, I think."

Em took it from her gingerly and took a while examining the seal as Sarah had done. Finally, she slid her thumb along the seam and broke it. As the paper unfurled gracefully, revealing a short note inside, Sarah clambered up on the couch beside her friend to read over Em's shoulder.

_Emma_, (Sarah's eyes narrowed at the gentle nickname)

_My sincerest apologies for leaving you so soon, but I'm afraid that business has called me back to my home. However, I'm finding it hard not to think about you, and I wish to extend an open invitation for you to visit me at my home at any time you wish. Should you want to see me, merely express it in words, and I will be there._

The note was left unsigned, but there was no doubt as to who it could be from. Sarah read through it again, feeling herself gag at Anlach's false romanticism. She wondered if Jareth had helped write it. Emmaline, however, lapped it up completely, smiling broadly and flipping the paper over to see if there was anything written on the back. Upon seeing that there was nothing there, she looked confused.

"I don't understand. He said he would be able to hear me if I wanted to see him. How is that possible?"

"It isn't, and even if it was, it would be creepy and stalker-ish," Sarah responded stiffly. She made to snatch the letter from Em's hands before she could say anything stupid, but they held fast. "Em! Let it go!"

She was suddenly fearful. They had broken the seal of a magic document that had most likely been made by two very powerful beings.

"But Sarah! I want to see him!" And those were the magic words.

The parchment grew hot in their hands, and Sarah yelped. But try as she might, she couldn't make her fingers drop it. It was like they had been glued to the paper. She glanced up at Emmaline's startled expression and realized that her friend was in the same boat. There was a powerful tug inside her chest, and then the two of them both vanished from Emmaline's living room, but as quickly as they disappeared, they reappeared somewhere else.

Wherever it was, the floor was _hard._

Sarah opened her eyes and exhaled slowly, only to see her breath unfurl before her in the suddenly frigid air. She turned her head to see Emmaline already struggling up to her feet, so Sarah put her hands underneath her to push herself up. The ground gave slightly, and she realized it wasn't ground at all; they were in snow that was about six inches deep.

_Lord of the North…_

When she finally got to her feet, vertigo making the earth spin around her, an amused voice called out to them.

"So glad you could _drop in._"

_Oh, how funny of you._

Anlach was observing them from the top of a staircase, leaning against a banister with his usual cocky air. Now that he was Underground, his hair was long again, tied back in a waist-length braid, and he was dressed in a similar fashion as Jareth, with the poet's shirt, vest, tight breeches and knee-high boots. The only different was that Anlach obviously preferred a mix of blue and white, while Jareth preferred a more monochromatic colour scheme.

And speaking of Goblin Kings…

He was hovering over his brother's shoulder, looking very much like his brother in the way he dressed and how he thought of himself. He smirked at Sarah briefly before turning away to disappear into the grand castle behind them which, oddly enough, Sarah had just noticed. At her dazed stare, Anlach laughed.

"Other-worldly travel will cloud your heads for a while, but give it a few more moments and everything should clear up right away." He brushed past Sarah, pausing only to touch her shoulder in greeting, to take Emmaline's hand and raise it to his thin lips. The girl smiled, all the while blushing madly. Sarah scoffed and turned away to look up the stairway, which was decorated with icicles that were twisted in various spires and helixes, reflecting the light in a charming yet harsh way. From somewhere to her left, she heard the strange singing of a bird, and she turned to see a vast forest flanking the castle on all sides.

Anlach was escorting a very confused Emmaline slowly up the stairs, his hands on her thin shoulders, wrapped around them in an obvious gesture of possessiveness, though he would, of course, only say that he was trying to keep her warm. Sarah followed after them warily, careful of where she put her feet, for the way the sun shone down on the steps made them appear to be slippery.

Jareth reappeared as soon as she reached level ground, still following the pair at a respectful distance. He carried a thick white cloak with him, which he wordlessly offered to Sarah as she drew up next to him. It was cold, and she was in no real mood for and argument, so she took it from him silently, throwing it over her shoulders. The affect was instantaneous, and she was grateful for its warmth, though still kept a mistrustful eye on the two nobles.

Had she been in a more relaxed state of mind, maybe she would have observed her surroundings with greater care. As it were, she kind of floated along the path in a fog, watching only where she put her feet and trying to ascertain whether or not she and Emmaline were in any immediate danger. So she was a bit surprised when they were suddenly at the doors, which were swung open for them instantly upon a lazy wave from Anlach's hand by the human-like guards standing there. But as Sarah walked by, she noticed that their hands were clawed and their ears were pointed. Not human in the slightest.

"Welcome to the House of the North," Anlach said with flourish, spinning on his heel to face them. Sarah didn't think that Emmaline really appreciated the view; her face was pale and blank, and she hadn't said anything since they had arrived. Sarah felt very sorry for her; at least she had had a book to prepare her for this when she had first come here. Emmaline was armed with nothing, guilty only of falling for the charming smile that happened to belong to a powerful Fae king, while Sarah had, in a sense, had it coming to her.

As Anlach took Emmaline's hands in his own and spoke to her softly, Jareth was suddenly at Sarah's elbow. Though the warmth of the air had increased upon entering the castle, it was still cool, and the Goblin King's warmth seeped through the cloak and into her skin, bringing colour back to her cheeks. She looked up at him as he looked down at her. He offered her a wry grin, the kind of smile you give someone when you feel sorry for them.

"Welcome back."

* * *

**Wow, that's a lot of line breaks, eh? This one is so long, I didn't really have any idea where to stop it. It's also rather quirky and jumpy towards the end, but I felt like I had to get the plot rolling sooner than later. **

**Adunyoka comes from Swahili: Adui (enemy) and Nyoka (snake) - essentially, enemy of snakes.**

**A better description of Anlach's castle/palace is coming soon. It would have been in this chapter, but this one's already too long as it is.**

**Read and review!**  
**-T.B.U.**


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